Among the Rubble
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl short fic. ZA/AU. Their lives were about the consistent rise and fall. Together, they could find the strength to start again and to keep moving forward. They could find hope among the rubble. Daryl/Carol
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This is another short fic that was requested. I've been sitting on it for a while. There's a little more information about things at the end. I guess you could say it's ZA/AU.**

 **For now, I offer warnings for child and infant mortality within the ZA.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Things happened quickly in Alexandria. On the whole, things happened quickly everywhere these days. Once, Daryl might have been dizzied by the speed of progression surrounding him—his life had always been sort of slow and nothing much to speak of—but the constant movement had almost desensitized him to the rush. They had to move quickly because the world was moving quickly. Hesitation would cause them all to fall.

They spoke of rising and falling a great deal too. They spoke more of the falling than the rising, but even Daryl knew that with every fall there must come a rise—or at least there must have been one to begin with.

Alexandria fell. It rose again, too, from the rubble of what had remained.

Wolves had come. Walkers had come. Negan had come. Alexandria fell. But then it rose again and those who would stand against them had been the ones to fall in something that Daryl could only think of as what would be known as a great, and very quick, war that would appear in all the history books if anyone ever had the time to start rewriting them.

Like something fresh out of legend, they'd found allies that seemed to appear and materialize from thin air. The people, who had a settlement a few miles from Alexandria that they called the Hilltop, had joined forces with Daryl and his friends—for he now considered those who had resided at Alexandria before their arrival as friends—to fight against those who would tear them down. The bonding force of a common enemy, it seemed, was strong enough to bring anyone together.

With Walkers as under control as they'd ever been, Negan safe under lock and key, and most of his men either killed or converted, they'd been able to begin rebuilding Alexandria. They'd been able to focus on making it better than before. They weren't going to fall again. At least, they weren't going to fall again because of lack of preparation.

In the steady work of rebuilding the community of Alexandria, Daryl had found a version of himself that he didn't know existed. It was a version of himself, though, that he wanted to keep. He thought, maybe, it was the best version of himself that might ever exist.

He had found Carol injured from a fight with Morgan, before their Great War, and he'd feared, for the seventy two hours that he'd spent holding something of a vigil over her, that he would lose her. The fear of loss, or maybe simply the feeling of being tired of so much loss, had spurred him into action. When she'd come back to him, like she always did, he'd found the determination within himself to finally tell her how he felt—a feeling that he'd worked out for himself during his vigil. He'd also found the determination to deal with Morgan. It was fine for the man to have his convictions, everyone should have them, but it wasn't fine for him to think that his convictions gave him the right to nearly kill their own people—especially not in protection of those who sought to destroy them. When the fight had been broken up, because Daryl didn't have the qualms against violence that Morgan claimed he had when he wasn't in combat with a woman half his size, Rick had declared that Daryl couldn't kill the man. That wasn't who they were. That wasn't how they operated.

But they could keep him separate until they were sure that he wasn't a threat to anyone. And then? When the fortuitous opportunity arose after their own Great War, they could send him to Hilltop where he would be someone else's problem. Let him be some reckless guru of quasi-peace if that's what he wanted, but at least he wasn't in Alexandria. In Alexandria, they protected themselves. They weren't falling again for lack of preparation.

Every person in Alexandria had dived into the preparation. It ran, just like everything else, side by side with the reconstruction of Alexandria. And Daryl kept busy.

Because, when he embraced the fast paced flurry of their lifestyle entirely, he got caught up in it. He requested a house of the many empty ones in Alexandria and he was granted it. He moved there with Carol whom Father Gabriel declared his wife with a small ceremony that was celebrated with a cake that Carol baked herself. Daryl watched as Carol became one of the main people in charge of training those who needed it—and even some who simply wanted some pointers and some refreshing—and he was soon enough one of the main voices in charge of runs and recruitment.

And then Daryl, in disbelief, watched as his life changed even more.

The community welcomed Hershel Rhee in their own time of peace and his arrival was cheered for and celebrated as proof that the whole world would go on and, by extension, that _their_ world would go on. He was almost as cheered for, in fact, as Maison Dixon when they welcomed him a mere three or four months after Hershel's arrival.

And for just a moment? Everything mattered even more than it had ever mattered before to Daryl. Alexandria had to be rebuilt entirely. It had to be better than ever. Better, even, than they'd ever imagined it might be. It had to be strong and well-provisioned. Hilltop, their main allies in this world, needed to be reinforced as well. People needed to be recruited because more people meant more strength—and more knowledge. Those people, by extension, needed to be trained because knowledge and preparation meant that there was less chance of a fall.

Daryl Dixon was, almost too quickly for him to even adjust to each new change before another came, a happily married man and a father of a healthy newborn son. It was something he never thought he'd see, even in a world that was teaching him not to be surprised by anything at all.

But with every rise, there must come a fall.

In this case, the fall came as a personal fall for Daryl and for Carol. Without explanation and without reason, they rose one morning to find that Maison, while they thought he was sleeping particularly well, had decided that his time with them was done. His life had been so short that they'd measured it only in weeks and they had no one to blame for his loss. It was, as far as anyone could tell, just a case of things that happen.

Daryl learned, the day that he stood holding Carol like she might slip away from him entirely, something that he never wanted to really believe. At least, not anymore. In a world where everything seemed caused by some plausible source of tragedy, there were still things that seemed to happen for no good reason at all.

In the three weeks since his son's passing, Daryl had spent much of his time with Carol. Rick had assured him, as had others, that they could handle things. They could take care of what needed to happen while he and Carol took care of themselves. Much of the time they'd spent in silence, but other times they'd spent simply being whatever it was that they felt they needed to be at the time.

There was anger. There was more anger than either of them knew what to do with. Not at each other. Never at each other. But it was there.

And there was sadness. There was more than enough of that to go around. Daryl took walks, making up excuses along the way, to be by himself and cry. No matter how often Carol told him he was welcomed to do it in front of her, and without judgment, he couldn't bring himself to let it happen that way. And she seemed to understand. After all, he understood why it was that she would take more showers than he'd ever known her to take before and why most of the time he never heard the water run in the bathroom.

There was guilt. The guilt, perhaps, was the hardest for Daryl to stomach. He thought that he might have done something different. Carol thought that she might have done something different. They both knew they were wrong, but it didn't mean that the feelings weren't there. And it was during the bouts of guilt that Daryl learned the truth about what had happened with Carol and Tyreese when they'd met up before they made it to the end of the tracks. He offered her the only thing he could, his own form of absolution and the promise that it wasn't her fault—and that she wasn't the monster she believed herself to be—but he could never be sure that she truly believed him. He knew, even if she didn't put it into words, that sometimes she thought that might be why Maison had left. Maybe she had caused it. Maybe it was her punishment.

She believed that she had a lot to be punished for. Daryl believed that her life had been punishment enough for anything she might even have imagined she'd done wrong.

They got through it, though, as much as Daryl imagined anyone ever got through it. It was always there, for both of them, but eventually the tears lessened. Eventually the guilt didn't keep them awake at night. And, eventually, they started to feel that they could go back out there, like they had to do, and keep on going.

Alexandria wouldn't fall again. Neither of them would let it. Now it was their home and it was the only home that Maison had ever known.

Three weeks after they buried him, Daryl went out to find Aaron and tell him that he was ready to go on runs again. He was ready to put his energy into building the community that they all dreamed of living in. Three weeks after they buried Maison, Carol went to find Michonne and tell her that she was ready to start taking part in the training sessions again. She was tired of death and loss and tragedy. She was ready to get back to making sure that they were prepared to keep those things from happening anymore.

Alexandria wouldn't fall again.

And Daryl and Carol, just like they always seemed to do, would dig around in the rubble of their broken hearts to find the pieces that they could find and fit them back together. Together they could do it. Together they could gather themselves up and move on. Things would keep going, for the both of them, and if Daryl had learned anything at all, they would keep going on as quickly as they'd ever moved before.

Their mourning wasn't done, and Daryl didn't know exactly how long something like that might last for either one of them, but at least they could couple their mourning with productivity.

Their world didn't stop for anything, after all, and it certainly didn't stop for loss. This was a world where loss happened all too frequently, however cruel and unfair it seemed, and they all simply had to keep moving.

The only hope they had, and maybe the only hope they ever had, was that they would rebuild. They'd rebuild the structures around them and, a little more each day and with the help of those around them, they'd rebuild the structures within them as well.

Daryl and Carol knew these things well. Both of them, if they knew little else, knew about rebuilding. And now, they had each other. Undeniably and eternally, they had each other.

Three weeks they'd mourned, but the time for mourning had passed. Now it was time for them both to start again.

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 **AN: So this is going to be a "short fic". The request was made and the person would prefer to remain anonymous. I have it figured that the story will be about ten chapters long. It's just a short fic. I won't say too much, but I'll say that it will have a happy ending, as most of my stories do. I won't promise, though, that there won't be moments where it's rough along the way.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl helped Aaron shuffle around some of the boxes in their main storage facility while others were working on organizing things and making the lists for their runs. As their group was growing, so was their effectiveness on runs. They were bringing in more people with more varied areas of expertise. As a result, they were able to achieve more than they'd been able to in the past. With the assistance of scouts that were more familiar with the areas surrounding them and mechanics that could work on machines of different types, they were able to go on runs at longer distances and they were able to bring more back. And all of this they were able to do with more safety because they were sending out people who were more prepared, better trained, and who were travelling in areas where they had allies working to clear Walker herds as quickly as they could become problems.

They had fallen, as had Hilltop, but the fall had been temporary. Now they were rising up ten times stronger than they had been. Daryl took none of the credit for himself, even when it was offered for some of his service, but he took great pride in everything that was going on.

And the more that he thought about going back out there, and the more that he listened to the casual conversation taking place around him, the more that he was anxious to feel the road beneath tires again.

But it didn't mean that he wasn't worried about leaving Carol. She could tell him that she was fine, and she could tell him that she wanted him to go because she knew it was something that he craved, but he would never feel entirely comfortable leaving her behind. He hadn't before they'd lost Maison, and he certainly didn't now.

"I'm just sayin' maybe I'm gonna sit out until the next one," Daryl said. "Help you get everything ready to go for this one and all, but maybe I'm not gonna ride out until the next one."

He'd been discussing it, intermittently, with Aaron and Rick for at least an hour and a half.

"The next run isn't going out for months," Aaron said. "If you don't want to go on the long one, then go on the short one. The sooner you get back out there, the easier it's going to be."

Daryl chuckled to himself and shook his head at the man. He wiped his hands off on his pants as soon as they'd lowered the box into the place that it was destined to go.

"This ain't about being scared to go on the road, man," Daryl said. "Nothing to do with that. It's got to do with leaving Carol. She's doin' alright. She's doin'—probably better than half the people around here would, but that don't mean she's at a hundred percent. I don't really want to go running off and leave her alone. Not when she's—feeling like she's feeling."

"Michonne said that Carol wants you to go on the run," Rick interjected from his working spot in the makeshift warehouse. "She's working on training. Michonne doesn't have her fighting yet, but she's out there. She's involved. She's distracted."

"That's just it," Daryl said. "She's _distracted_. I went down there. I watched her. Her mind's kind of in it, but her heart ain't. Not yet. And I just don't want to run off and leave her. If she needs me?"

"We'll look out for her," Rick said. "I promise you that."

Daryl snorted.

"You'll understand if I don't trust you to do that," Daryl said.

He and Rick had more than one discussion surrounding Carol. Rick had apologized, ten-fold, about his decision to put Carol out of the prison when he had. Carol had forgiven him, but Daryl hadn't ever been able to put it entirely out of his mind. Rick was a pretty decent leader, especially when he had a council behind him to whisper in his ear and to help him out with the things that he got conflicted on, but Daryl was realistic enough to know that he buckled under too much pressure. Rick wanted to do the right thing. What he forgot, sometimes, was that the right thing didn't exist. What he forgot, the rest of the time, was that the _right_ thing wasn't always what was going to be the most beneficial to Rick.

In short, Rick was human. And Daryl understood that, but it didn't mean that he didn't keep, somewhere in the back of his mind, the memory that Rick had once left his brother handcuffed to a roof and had left Carol, now Daryl's wife and even then love, to fend for herself in this world.

Rick gave Daryl the same apologetic look he always did when Daryl brought up past sins. He sighed and shook his head.

"I can't take that back, Daryl," Rick said. "But I can promise you that it won't happen again. We're safe. Alexandria is probably the most secure development in the whole world right now."

"It'll be two days tops," Aaron said. "If you go on the short run? Two days tops with six men. We're just scouting. It's not even too risky."

Aaron glanced at Rick and something in his expression must have told Rick to bug off for the moment. Rick turned and, without a word, excused himself back to what he was doing. Aaron looked at Daryl then.

"It's two days," he said. "Nothing's going to happen. Not here and not out there. Maybe the two days apart will give Carol a little time to think. A little time to breathe even. It'll give her a chance to think about—what she wants to say when you get back. And—Eric will look in on her. I promise you that." Aaron laughed to himself. "He'll even spend the night with her. Camp out on your couch. If that's what you want."

Daryl laughed at the suggestion as well. The man would probably do that if Carol asked him to. He was fond of the children and he was good with them all. He'd been enthusiastic about Maison's arrival and helped to ready a nursery for him along with Michonne and few others.

He'd also been one of the devastated few to really step up and help Carol and Daryl when they felt like their worlds were crashing down around them. He'd been the one to suggest that, even if it seemed foolish and like a waste of time, they have an actual funeral for the boy that was complete with a small coffin for a respectful burial and a few words about the short time that they'd had to spend with him.

If Carol needed him to sleep on the couch, he would.

If Carol needed anyone, she had more than enough support there. She'd made friends with many of the people there. Some of them were good friends, Michonne among them, and any of them would offer her whatever comfort they could.

Daryl nodded his head. He wanted to go on the run. He'd discussed it with Carol already. She thought it was best if he did just that. She supported him entirely on his decision just as he'd supported her desire to get back out there and train with the others. He was, realistically, the only one holding himself back.

"I'll go," he said. "But just on the short run this time. Get back in there a little along."

"You know," Jamie said to get Daryl's attention as he approached. He was one of the newer men that had come to Alexandria through recruitment. "You ever thought about you and your wife just—trying again? Doc said it didn't have anything to do with the two of you. Everybody knows that. Just an accident what happened. You could try again. Have another kid. They say things like that? Work wonders for helping you move on. Helping your wife move on? Give you both something else to focus on."

Daryl swallowed. He wasn't offended, exactly, but what Jamie had said. The young man was just that, a young man. He'd had a wife and, according to Jamie, an infant son when the whole thing had broken out. He'd lost both of them. His story wasn't entirely unlike the story of most others. He'd started this whole thing a completely different person than he was at the moment.

And Daryl didn't dislike him, so he was able to forgive him for the less than delicate nature of his comment, but that didn't mean that it didn't strike Daryl at least a little.

"Good God," Aaron commented, interjecting before Daryl had a chance to say anything in response. "It's their son, not a dog. They can't replace him like that."

Daryl laughed quietly in his throat at the exchange, and also at the apologetic expression that came across Jamie's face. He waved it off and shook his head at him.

"It's OK," Daryl offered. He hummed as he thought, for just a moment, about how he might respond to the man's comments—and to what he felt that Jamie had really meant by the suggestion that was meant to be innocent and helpful. "You know, it might be true. And—Carol and me? We might—would want that. But it just ain't a good idea." Immediately Daryl was aware that he had the attention of everyone in his immediate surrounding area. It was something that he was growing more comfortable with than he'd ever thought possible. Being one of the main people who worked runs was making him more and more accustomed to dealing with a wide variety of people. "We didn't mean for Maison to come. It just happened. There's a lot of risks. Not just to the baby. It was fine when it was just what happened, but we aren't letting it happen again."

A few scattered hums around him and some nods of understanding were what he got in response. Nobody really knew what to say to him. Nobody had really known what to say to either one of them surrounding Maison's passing. Congratulations were easy enough when the baby was coming. Well-wishes were too. But when he was gone? People could say they were sorry, but the word was hollow. It was clear that even the people saying it realized that.

Growing uncomfortable, for the moment, with the awkwardness that seemed to necessarily fall around them, Daryl sought his escape route. He excused, with some stammered words of "it's OK" and "we're doing OK" any need to continue in the vein of conversation that they'd entered into, and then he sought further escape by changing the subject.

"When are we leaving?" Daryl asked, directing his question to Aaron.

"Two days," Aaron said. "Just like you always say, it's better to head out with the sun."

Daryl smiled to himself and nodded at the man.

"Two days it is, then," Daryl confirmed. "Glenn?"

Aaron shook his head.

"Not this time," he responded.

Daryl nodded knowingly at that too. Glenn had a young son. A young, healthy son, and he was off runs for as long as they could spare him to give him time to simply enjoy being in the community with his wife and his child. Daryl couldn't and wouldn't deny him that, even if he liked having him along on runs.

"You got it all together?" Daryl asked. A nod from Aaron confirmed that he did, not that Daryl doubted it. "You need...?" Daryl asked, sweeping his hand around the space to signal that he was asking if he was desperately needed there for anything.

"No," Aaron said. "We're just about through here and we've got more than enough people to cover what we're doing."

Daryl nodded again, this time in appreciation.

"I'ma head out," Daryl said. "Check on a couple things. But—I'll be ready. Two days."


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Here we go, another chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl took his time strolling around Alexandria. He waved at a few people and spoke to a few others. He made his way down to the area inside their new expansion where the training sessions went on and he quickly found Michonne as she sat sipping on a bottle of water.

"Don't look like you're doing much," Daryl commented.

Michonne's head jerked in his direction, ready to go on the defense, and then she smiled at him. She smiled a great deal more these days than she ever had when they'd first come to know her.

"You're not too busy either, Dixon," she commented back. "Break time."

"Carol?" Daryl asked, glancing around.

Michonne nodded at him.

"She stopped for the evening," Michonne said. "Went home to get your dinner ready."

Daryl thanked Michonne for the information and left, heading back in the direction of his home. Even in the days right before Maison came, Carol was out there almost until the sun set. Daryl often had to tell her it was time to go home. They had to eat and she had to rest. Even when she couldn't be physically involved in the training, Carol was out there coaching everyone on the mental aspects of what they had to do—of what this world demanded of them.

This world, after all, required more than brute strength to simply keep going.

He wasn't going to hold it against her, though, if she wasn't entirely "on" just yet. Neither was he. It was easy to get distracted and it was easy to think that you just wanted to step away, even for a moment, from people that you felt somewhat disconnected from. They may understand, in some way, what you were going through, but it wasn't their reality for the moment.

And Daryl knew that there was a lot that was crashing down on Carol right now—a lot that she hadn't let herself _feel_ the way that she'd instructed Daryl he must do.

Carol wasn't hard to find when Daryl came through the door of the house that they called home. The smell of food greeted him—some casserole or another that she had in the oven—and Carol's smile greeted him immediately afterward when she came from the staircase with a dusting rag in her hand. Every day she seemed to find something to wipe down. Daryl lived in the cleanest house in the community.

Carol came straight to him and offered her lips to him in expectation of a kiss. It was a kiss that she was immediately granted with more enthusiasm than she even requested.

"Good day training?" Daryl asked when they pulled apart.

"As good as it can be," Carol said. "The new recruits are really good, actually. I don't think they need much help. Their form could be better. But we're going to work on formation."

"Most effective," Daryl said. "At least for when you've got to get through a crowd."

Carol nodded and Daryl smiled to himself. They could talk "shop" all day long if they wanted, but most of the time it was just a way to avoid talking about what was on their minds. Sometimes they dragged it out longer than other times, but in the end they always ended up getting around to the meat of things.

"You didn't want to stay out longer?" Daryl asked. Carol frowned at him, but she didn't respond. She turned, instead, like she might go about cleaning something or checking the casserole. Daryl caught her shoulder to stop her escape and she froze in her spot for a moment. He didn't have to do anything but stand there, his hand on her shoulder, and wait her out for a moment before she finally spoke.

"Maggie brought Hershel by," Carol said. Daryl hummed. He understood. Even without her having to say more, he understood. The presence of the baby upset Carol. She felt guilty for that, but it still happened. The best way to handle it, or so it seemed that she'd decided it was the best way, was for her to simply leave the area. Daryl waited her out a moment more and she rewarded him with continuing to put her thoughts into words. "It's not that I—it's not—I'm _happy_ for them, Daryl," Carol said. "I am. I'm happy for them that Hershel is so..."

"But it just ain't easy," Daryl offered. Carol shook her head, her back still to him for the moment.

"My mind doesn't think it's easy," Carol said. "But my _body_ doesn't think it's easy either. It's like—I _respond_ to him. I hear him getting upset about something and I just..."

Carol broke off and shook her head. She turned then and Daryl moved his hand to allow her freedom of movement. Carol faced him and he could see her grief on her face. "I started leaking just because he was crying," she said. She shrugged. "I just couldn't stay out there, so I didn't."

Daryl responded to her by shaking his head at her.

"And you don't gotta," Daryl said. "One day? Maybe it won't be so bad. But—we ain't even cleaned out Maison's room. We ain't—moved his crib to the other room. Nobody's lookin' at you and expecting that it don't bother you no more. They don't expect that of neither one of us. And—I don't expect it of you neither."

Carol visibly swallowed. It almost looked like it pained her to do it. She nodded, accepting that she was allowed to feel whatever it was that she was finally starting to let herself feel. The only problem, in Daryl's opinion, was that he sometimes thought that Carol had forced herself to push everything back for a long time and now, little by little, it was all coming in together. It was too much for her sometimes. It looked heavy on her shoulders. And even though he could be there for her, there was nothing he could really do to take that weight off of her.

"Maggie and Glenn understand," Daryl offered. Carol nodded at that. "You don't gotta choke it back," Daryl offered softly. "No shame if you wanna—you know—cry about it."

She shook her head, but she did leave him there, in a hurry, while she excused herself to their bedroom. Daryl didn't follow her. Sometimes she wanted him to come with her. Other times she didn't. If she'd wanted him then she would've let him know. He was fine with giving her the space that she needed when it was something that she let him know that she desired.

While Carol was gone, getting control of herself in the quiet of the bedroom, Daryl went and checked the casserole in the oven. He wasn't sure if it was done or not, but he could at least make sure that it didn't look like it was burning. Then, for good measure, he washed a dish that was in the sink and put it to dry so that Carol would have one less to wash later. Then he made himself a glass of the iced tea that she made as a special treat for him to cool off with and he leaned against their marble countertop to drink it. Daryl never would have imagined that he'd ever live in a house with marble countertops.

But this life had already put him in more unimaginable situations than he could count. He sometimes wondered what Merle would think, if he were here, to see the life that they were building.

When Carol returned, she took the casserole out of the oven. Daryl asked her quietly if she was OK and she confirmed it with the same low volume that he'd used. She began dishing out the food before the steam had even slowed its rolling out of the dish and she handed Daryl a plate as soon as she was done spooning it out. He accepted it and got forks for them both, holding them up to show her that he'd gotten one for her. And then, together, they sat down at their oversized table to eat the steaming food.

Daryl blew on the food and carefully took a bite because he could tell that it was still scalding. He immediately praised the dish and Carol thanked him politely from across the table. He ate, in silence, until she let him know that she was ready to start talking again.

"You talked to Aaron?" Carol asked. Daryl hummed his confirmation while he finished with the bite of food that he was working on. "You're going on the run?" Carol pressed. Daryl hummed again.

"Two days out," he said. "Three tops. You sure you want me to go? They don't really need me out there. I could wait it out for the next one."

"What for?" Carol asked. Daryl stared at her and Carol furrowed her brow at him. "I'm fine," she said, as though she could read his mind. "I'm—I'm maybe a little more _emotional_ than I'd like to be, but I'm fine."

"It ain't been a month," Daryl offered. Carol almost looked mad at him. She did everything a little differently when she was frustrated. She even, in this case, _chewed_ differently.

"Not going on the run won't bring Maison back," Carol said. She shook her head at him. "Not going on the run won't. Not training won't. Not moving on? None of it will..."

Daryl nodded when she stopped speaking. There was no need to continue in the vein she was going in at the moment. He understood perfectly well what she was saying without all the details.

"I was just saying I don't gotta go," Daryl said. "But if you really want me to..."

"I think that we both need to get back to something _normal_ in our lives," Carol said. "And for you? You love those runs. You love being out there. And I..."

"You're gonna train with Michonne," Daryl offered. Carol nodded more emphatically than before.

"I'm going to train with Michonne," Carol confirmed.

Daryl turned his attention to his food. The casserole was pretty good, but he couldn't really focus on it. He hadn't focused on the taste of food in a while. It was one of the things that he'd noticed since Maison had died. They could both pretend to put on a happy face and both of them could go on with their lives—because that's what they were supposed to do in this world—but there were things that they just couldn't control. For Daryl, one of those things was that he didn't really enjoy the taste of food as much as he remembered. It was as though he could taste it, but the flavors weren't really that present on his tongue. Something always seemed to be on his mind that was blocking the taste. Still, no matter what, he complemented Carol on the meals because it seemed to be important to her to know that she was preparing something that he liked eating. He didn't have the heart to tell her that these days he'd be just as satisfied to eat those fake mashed potatoes for every meal because he was simply eating as part of his routine.

"Anything you want me to look for?" Daryl asked.

Carol stared at him like she was thinking and then she shook her head.

"What are you going after?" She asked. "Food run or other supplies?"

Daryl shrugged and shook his head.

"Neither, really," he said. "Scouting this time. Probably riding out in the direction of Hamilton. Jesus said there was some signs of camps out there. Aaron probably wants to scout to see if there's anybody out there worth bringing in."

"Here or Hilltop?" Carol asked.

"Choice is theirs," Daryl said. "Like always. Last group went to Hilltop, though. Wouldn't hurt to get a few more people coming in here."

Carol hummed, but she was distracted. It was natural. They were talking "shop" again. She mused over the comment far longer than she needed to, pushed some of the food around on her plate before she tasted a little of it out of habit, and then she spoke again.

"If you're not looking for anything, then there's no reason to request anything," she said. Daryl hummed. That much was true. He wouldn't be too likely to come across anything that Carol wanted. There hadn't been too much that she'd requested anyway, even when she'd been getting ready for the baby. The only thing she'd asked him to find—and he'd had to drag Michonne along with him to find it in the first place—was a breast pump that she still used when she complained that things got too uncomfortable for her liking. Daryl had brought her back one or two things on his own, hoping she'd think they were just nice, but mostly she made comments about how she didn't need too much these days and how, really, some of the things she used to think she needed were just _silly_.

 _Things seemed even sillier at the moment._

"If I see something," Daryl offered, "might bring it back for you just because. Little present or something."

Carol shook her head.

"Don't go through any trouble," she said. "I'd rather you be careful and _come back_ than bring me anything."

"Just the same," Daryl responded, dropping his voice a level.

He watched her push the food around on her plate. She hadn't said anything about it, but maybe she was tasting food much the way that he was these days. She ate enough to get by, and enough not to lose her strength, but there was a little something missing from it for the time being.

"You ain't hungry?" Daryl asked. She shook her head gently to confirm that she wasn't. Daryl cleared his throat. "Put this away for tomorrow?" He asked. "Go to bed?"

"Start again tomorrow?" Carol asked. She gave him a hint of a smile. Those were rare these days, but Daryl would take any of them that he could get. He knew, right now, how much they were worth.

"Pretty much the idea of it," he confirmed.

"Just so you know, I'm not in the mood for anything," Carol said. "I'm not sure I can. Not tonight." Daryl shook his head at her.

"Wasn't proposing anything besides sleepin' beside me," Daryl said. "Last I checked, you could do that just fine. What'cha say? Go to bed?"

Carol's confirmation came in another of the slight smiles and the pushing away of her chair from the table. Daryl followed suit and gathered up their plates to take them to the kitchen so that he could help her put the casserole away that would, more than likely, feed them both until he left for the run.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Here we go, another little chapter here.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Aaron had been true to his word. Two days scouting, six men in their party of whom Daryl was only closely acquainted with two beyond Aaron—the other two being fairly new to Alexandria and having come in during his practical shut-in period of mourning—and nothing had happened. They'd accomplished their job of locating a few businesses in an area that they hadn't fully explored before. There wasn't much there to speak of, though, and most of what anyone might want they were bringing back in their vehicles. They were having to go farther and farther to scavenge these days, but Hilltop was making great strides toward helping them all become more self-sufficient so that they could _make_ whatever they needed. In exchange, the Alexandrians were branching out and clearing as much as they could while recruiting new people.

New people, surprisingly enough, weren't that difficult to come by.

Nearly every run they went on, they tripped up on them. Sometimes the groups were rather large—five or six or even ten people—but most times they were small. One or two sole survivors that had somehow made it this far by leaning on each other. Some groups they could approach in a friendly manner, invite them back, and shake hands in a matter of minutes. Others ended up being too far gone with all their experiences and they would try to attack. Those, unfortunately, often ended up finding the end of their road was somewhere just outside of what might have been their salvation.

They were heading back, on the morning of their second day, with their spirits a little low because they'd found neither supplies worth mentioning nor people to help populate their ever growing communities. Daryl rode in the front car with Aaron, the windows down, as they crept along the road at no more than ten to fifteen miles per hour. Their slow crawl allowed them to look over the outlying land—land that would one day be within the walls of one of their communities—and to survey how well the clearing parties had been doing at keeping Walkers out of their surrounding areas.

They didn't talk much, because there wasn't much to say, but every now and again Aaron forced some bit of conversation to keep them from riding along in complete silence. And every now again, though it was much more rare, Daryl was the one that offered something to remind them both that they could hear things beyond the sounds of road noise.

"I wish the stupid radio worked in this thing," Daryl said.

"Hart said he could fix it," Aaron said. Daryl hummed. He hadn't even meant what he'd said. Even if the radio worked, they wouldn't use it. They liked to keep their noise down. It wasn't a sincere comment, it was just something to pass the time. He was sure, though, that Aaron knew that. His own comment, more than likely, wasn't too sincere either. "The two of you are going to get through this," Aaron said, once the silence had fallen around them again. "I know you are. You're strong enough for it."

Daryl didn't have to ask him what he was talking about. He knew. He'd also heard those words before.

"We don't doubt we're gonna get through it," Daryl said, looking out the window. Something just above the tree line looked like smoke, and he tried to focus on it to explain it away for himself—fog on an otherwise clear day? He huffed and shifted in his seat. "We're already gettin' through it. Just—so damn _quiet_."

"If you want to talk about it," Aaron offered, "it'll break the silence."

"Wasn't talking about in the car," Daryl said.

He'd been fascinated to watch Maison grow even before he was born. Every change in Carol, even the changes she hated, were amazing. So slowly, but so quickly at the same time, Daryl had watched everything about her changing and adapting. Her body altered itself for the little boy, but her personality did too. She softened, in all the right ways, while she'd been preparing for him and Daryl had been able to witness it all firsthand. And though he'd feared something horrible at the birth of the boy, it hadn't been anything like his nightmares had suggested it might be. There was blood and mess, and there were tears and more than a few choice words from Carol, but it was nothing out of a horror movie. And at the end of it, they'd had a surprisingly bright eyed baby boy that had happily eaten his first meal before he'd fallen asleep to rest up from the grand adventure of getting there.

And then, Daryl had watched Maison grow from the outside. Feedings and diapers and baths—and sleeping when he should've been awake and waking when he should've been asleep—became common place. Daryl and Carol both woke every time the boy cried and sometimes it was almost like a race to see who could get to his crib first to decide which need it was that he was expressing. Carol preferred when he woke them for something tangible—a diaper or a feeding—but Daryl's favorite reasons to wake in the middle of the night were when the boy seemed to want nothing more than to be held close to someone's body and reminded that he wasn't alone in this world. Daryl would walk the floors for long, quiet hours when those wakings occurred.

 _It was like being awakened just to be reminded that you were loved. You were important and someone needed you there for no other reason than they simply missed you._

Maison started sleeping longer. There were more hours between each cry for something. And then, one night, he'd slept the longest that he ever had. Carol had gotten up to feed him in the darkness. Daryl sat on the side of the bed and scrubbed at his eyes until she returned and slipped under the covers. Maison had eaten and he was asleep again. All was well in their world. Daryl had pulled Carol close to him and they'd gone back to sleep to snag a few precious hours before Maison sounded the alarm again.

When Daryl woke again, it was the harshest waking that he'd ever had in his life. Carol's blood curdling screams rang out through the house and Daryl wasn't entirely sure he inhaled from the time he got out of bed until he stumbled into the room to find her clutching the side of the crib and screaming for pity or mercy from anyone and any entity that might hear her. There was nothing to do and she was frozen in horror. When Daryl had pulled her away, practically having to peel her from the side of the crib, he'd found that her knees didn't seem to be working properly and that she seemed to have no ability to turn off the howling unless it was to mute it to a sobbing that shook his insides every bit as much as the screaming had.

He took care of it. He did what he had to do. And then he wrapped the boy up in a blanket and he held him like he would any night that he was getting him out of the crib to hush his crying, and he took him to Carol. At first she hadn't wanted him. He wasn't her baby. He hadn't been her baby for some time. But Daryl had sat with her, the bundle in his arms, and had spent some strange minutes reliving out loud the little boy's life as though it had lasted far longer than it truly had. It had probably taken them more than hour, just sitting together, before Daryl had gone two doors down to ask Michonne what they were supposed to do. At that moment, he simply didn't know what they were supposed to do. But, from her own horrible experiences, Michonne had known what to do.

Carol still started in the middle of the night. Daryl would wake to find her sitting on the edge of the bed like she was about to get up. Then she'd lie back down without an explanation. Daryl didn't ask, but he was sure that she heard Maison.

Daryl still heard him too. When it was quiet. Instinct told him to go and check on the boy—instinct that he still felt had let him down the night when he really should've checked on him—even if the crying was just something his mind imagined.

He could hear him now, faintly, when the silence fell over them. It never really went away entirely. He wondered if it ever would.

Daryl cleared his throat, almost physically shaking the sounds out of his mind, and shifted again. He was moments away from pointing out the strange fog that he couldn't explain away, when he heard the cracking noise. He looked at Aaron and it registered on the man's face that he heard it too.

"Gunshot?" Aaron asked.

"Unless it's the damn Fourth of July," Daryl responded when another cracking sound rang out.

Aaron started to look for where it might have come from and Daryl gestured, then, toward the strange cloud, while he slapped at Aaron's shoulder.

"Fire," Aaron said.

"Maybe it ain't friendly, either," Daryl said. "Could be shooting at animals. Hungry. Looking for something to eat. But..."

"It's probably Walkers or another group," Aaron confirmed, showing that he was on the same page as Daryl. Daryl hummed and without the need for further communication, Aaron selected a side road that would take them closer to the cloud of smoke. In the mirror, Daryl could see that the car behind them was following their lead without question.

They hit their feet as soon as Aaron admitted that he wasn't sure he knew how to get them any closer to the fire by car. Behind them, the other four men spilled out of the vehicles and hit their feet too. They moved as quickly and quietly as they could and let Daryl lead because he was usually the best at finding whatever they were searching for. It wasn't hard, this time, to find the group that they were after. There were sounds of some screaming that started to get louder and louder and the sounds, ringing out, told them all that they were headed in the right direction.

Daryl had his crossbow loaded in front of him when they finally found the small clearing where the group was making camp. If he hadn't been paying attention, he'd have fallen over the chewed up body that blocked his entrance into the space, but he saw it and stepped over it. From the screams they hadn't known whether to expect that the group was under attack by Walkers or by another group, but it only took a second to realize that it was Walkers. It was Walkers that, apparently, had caught them entirely off-guard. Out here, it was dangerous to be off your guard for even a moment. The Walkers were fewer than they used to be, thanks to their clearing parties, but they still popped up.

Quickly Daryl and his group took down the Walkers that remained. There were eight of them. Maybe there were ten. The group had done a decent job of taking some of them down—they'd gotten down a dozen, but not before the Walkers had mauled and killed a few of them.

Once the immediate threat of Walkers was under control, they walked around checking the bodies. Those that were dead but hadn't turned were put down immediately. They identified, quickly, three men that were still alive, although barely, and two women—and there was one woman who was still screaming and who had been, undoubtedly, the one to let them know where they were. Daryl went straight to that woman, flinching even as he heard the sound of the silenced pistol putting down someone who had requested that their wait to die be shortened.

Daryl went directly for the screaming woman. Her screams were too reminiscent of those that he heard from Carol, at least as his mind remembered them, and he wanted to quiet them. He tried to tell her that they were there to help. He tried to warn her that she'd call up more Walkers. He asked her to be quiet. But, in the end, she was driven by pain, fear, or trauma to simply keep screaming. Daryl looked her over as best he could while she fought against him and writhed around on the ground, but it was clear that she was bitten and too far gone to be saved. He asked her, over her screams, if she wanted him to shorten it for her, and when she couldn't respond, he made his own decision to silence the howling.

As soon as he put the woman down it was remarkably quieter. His ears were ringing, and Daryl found himself putting his hands over them to try to simply muffle the hodgepodge of sounds that remained inside his head—her screaming, the sounds of the Walkers that were now put down, the crying that seemed to always be there—and he jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Aaron waved his hands quickly at Daryl, the sign to remind them all that they were friends despite whatever might be playing out just behind someone's eyes at any given time, and Daryl swallowed. He came slowly back into himself, even if the soundtrack of his mind didn't stop.

"Where's it coming from?" Aaron asked.

Daryl furrowed his brow at the man.

"The crying?" Aaron clarified.

Daryl realized, then, with a quick glance around him that he wasn't the only one who heard the crying. This time it wasn't Maison's cries that he heard. It wasn't his own mind being cruel to him. He looked around. He tried to follow the noise and stumbled only a moment around the camp before he picked up on where it was coming from—something here, something in his immediate vicinity.

Looking up, just above his head and beyond arm's reach was a suspended bundle—a hammock of sorts. It was out of reach for him. It would be out of reach of most Walkers. Most men would walk under it without noticing its presence. Daryl quickly found the rope, tied to a branch nearby, that held the bundle suspended. He cut it, holding its end, and lowered the bundle as he walked back toward it. He caught it in his hands as his body reached it.

The bundle fell around the baby inside and over Daryl's arms. The baby was small, red-faced, and had dragon tears forming in the corners of its eyes. It was tightly swaddled so that nothing but its head was visible to Daryl. It was howling, now, from the movement of the hammock bed as much as it had been from the terrifying noises around it. Daryl hugged it close to him and shushed the baby, gaining a little quiet in between the howls that suggested it might actually calm with a little patience and coddling.

Glancing around him, there was nothing left of the camp that they'd stumbled upon besides the low burning fire, well on its way to burning out and puffing out a steady stream of smoke, and the corpses of the people and Walkers alike. The other men in their group looked to Aaron. Aaron looked to Daryl.

"Nothin' we can do for them," Daryl said. "But this guy? He's gonna make it if we get on back."


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Here we are, another chapter here. Sorry for the wait. Real life is very busy sometimes.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"You've already got the one," Daryl said. "It won't be no trouble for you to just—take her in and feed her."

Glenn shook his head at Daryl and Daryl felt his frustration growing with Glenn's continued reluctance to take the infant from him. In the car he'd managed to get her calmed enough so that she didn't drive them crazy before they reached Alexandria, but it was clear that she was hungry. She was hungry and, only thanks to Daryl's ingenuity, was now wearing a questionably clean shirt as a temporary diaper.

She'd been born out there and her mother—probably one of the women they left dead in the clearing—hadn't been prepared to handle her. Not out there. Not with the constant threat of Walkers and other groups. She'd been creative enough to think up the hammock that had saved the girl's life, but it was clear that there had been limited supplies. In this area there would be. Alexandria and the Hilltop, and Negan's forces before them, had cleared most of what there was around. That was one of the reasons, after all, that they even bothered with the scouting parties. Bringing in new people helped them to build their numbers, but it also helped save the lives of the people who might not be able to find anything in their immediate area to help them save themselves.

The baby was hungry, she'd been exposed to the elements, and she needed care soon. Denise had checked her over, declared her to be a few weeks old, and had given her antibiotics for an infection around her umbilical cord. The baby, though, realistically needed more than that if she was going to survive. She needed to be cared for. The easiest way to do that was going to be to find her a family, and preferably one that could take care of feeding her because formula was scarce.

And Glenn and Maggie had one ready-made.

"Don't shake your damn head at me," Daryl snapped, not realizing until the words left his lips that he was as riled up as he was. He'd taken the baby to Denise and he'd gotten her this far, but he was frustrated that nobody else seemed even remotely motivated to help him. "She's starving and she wants something to eat. This pacifier ain't gonna last her too long and Maggie's set to feed her."

"We can't take her," Glenn said. He shook his head again to further solidify his words. "We're not set up for two and it's too much to have a newborn on top of Hershel."

Daryl scoffed at him and shifted the infant in his arms when she started to fuss again.

"You'd just let her die because it's _too much_?" Daryl asked. "What the hell?"

Glenn raised his eyebrows at him.

"You and Carol take her," Glenn said. Daryl started shaking his head even as the words were coming out of Glenn's mouth. Denise had said the same thing. Glenn wasn't the first to start this line of thought. "Why not?" Glenn asked, responding to Daryl's head shaking. "You're set up and ready for a baby. You know you were ready. Everyone worked to make sure you had everything you need. She needs somebody. And Carol can feed her—you know she can."

Daryl swallowed and shook his head.

"This ain't about cribs or whether or not Carol can feed her," Daryl said. "It's about what if she don't want to feed her. This ain't stayin' up an extra hour at night, Glenn. Not the same as you and Maggie. You don't know what the hell it's..."

Daryl broke off and shook his head at Glenn.

"You don't know," he said. "And I hope you don't, but I need you to take this kid."

"Did you even ask Carol?" Glenn asked.

Daryl hadn't asked Carol. He'd been avoiding Carol since he got back. She was training, he knew that much, or she was occupied in the house. She would know they were back and she would know that, since no call had been made for help, they were all fine. She wouldn't worry too much about him or about a run like this. He could avoid her for a while longer, find a home for the girl, and then fill Carol in on it with nothing more than the usual air of ticking off what they'd seen and done while on the run.

He didn't want to ask her because he was sure that she'd say no. He didn't want to ask her because he didn't want to stir up something in her that she didn't want to deal with right now. He overlooked the things that people said, but he could tell that Carol was hurt every time someone said something stupid about just having another kid. She didn't want another kid. She wanted Maison—and Sophia—and she wasn't getting that back. There wasn't any way to get them back.

"Glenn, I'm askin' you to take this kid," Daryl said. "It'll just be better that way."

"It won't be better that way," Glenn responded. "We're moving to Hilltop and it's going to be risky enough making the trip with Hershel. We don't need to try to make it with two. If we take her? We'll be putting things off and then we'll be risking her life and Hershel's. It's better for you two to take her. You're set up for her. You're ready for her. She _needs_ you. And whether or not you two are ready to admit it, you need her too."

Daryl almost felt helpless for a moment. He stood there, frozen in his inability to come up with any argument more compelling than the one that he'd already given to Glenn, and then the baby started to fuss quietly again. He bobbed her, absentmindedly, in his arms and then turned away from Glenn without even saying another word.

Daryl made his way to the supply area, almost hiding the bundle of a child beneath his arms, and was met by Olivia's cheerful face greeting him at the door.

"Already out of supplies?" She asked.

Daryl was almost shocked by hearing her voice. For the walk over, he'd been so lost in his own thoughts that he'd almost forgotten that he was surrounded by people. He'd definitely forgotten that he was surrounded by cheerful people of the likes of Olivia—people that seemed to lack even half the concerns that he dealt with before he'd properly digested his breakfast.

"Ain't for me," Daryl said, snapping into his reality. "Need formula."

Olivia furrowed her brow at him and then opened her mouth in the almost perfectly round shape of an "O" as she apparently realized that he was holding a baby bundled in the crook of his arm.

"What happened..."

"I need formula," Daryl repeated. "So do you got it or I gotta go find it?"

She nodded.

"We've got some..." she responded, drawing the word out like she was hesitant to even admit that. Daryl didn't know, though, what she might be saving it for if it wasn't for hungry babies. The only response he made was to push past her and get inside the building. She followed him as he went down the hall and started searching the loaded wire shelves himself. She stood by and allowed him to search, in vain, for a moment before she found a can of the powdered formula for him and offered it to him.

"Where'd you get the baby?" Olivia asked.

"Found it," Daryl said. "And I gotta figure out what we're doing with it, but it's gonna starve in the meantime. Bottle? Water? It can't eat this shit dry."

Olivia nodded too slowly for his tastes and then went to get him a bottle and bottle of water. It was as though she'd never seen a baby before or as though she had no idea of how urgently this one seemed to need to eat. Daryl could soothe the baby, every now and again, by tapping its pacifier or by removing the plug entirely and returning it, but it was clear that the baby was famished. There was no telling how long it had been before the mother had found it safe enough to remove the child from the hammock for a feeding. As soon as Olivia reached him, not trusting her to get the food ready in any reasonable amount of time, Daryl directed her to a semi-empty shelf and, one-handed, went about making the bottle to the best of his abilities.

Olivia just watched him and he tried to avoid being entirely frustrated with her.

"What are you going to do with it?" Olivia asked.

Daryl laughed to himself—a laugh born entirely from his frustration at the moment.

"I'm gonna feed it," he said. "The rest don't matter until that's done. You think you could shake this up? Since you're being such a big help and all?"

The bite to the comment seemed to do something to spur the woman on and she immediately took the bottle and finished its preparation. Daryl almost snatched it from her and offered it to the infant as soon as he'd removed the pacifier from her mouth. She took a moment, hesitating in case it might be just another trick, to suck at the bottle, but finally she settled into it.

"She's starving," Olivia said. Daryl hummed. This was information that wasn't new to him in the slightest. "Why don't you—keep her?"

"We aren't throwing her to the Walkers, if that's what you mean," Daryl said. "She survived out there. We don't let her die just because nobody..."

He stopped.

He wasn't going to say it. He wasn't going to say that nobody wanted her. Already, in his gut, he knew that wasn't true. He might not have verbally admitted it, but he already knew the truth. _He_ wanted her. And, maybe, in hindsight, Glenn had been able to see that. Maybe that's why the headstrong Korean had refused to take her in the first place. The road to Hilltop was relatively safe. They'd have little trouble on their move—one or two babies in tow—given that they would be travelling with a group that was more than capable of getting them there safely. Glenn hadn't refused the baby because they simply couldn't offer her a home, he'd refused the baby because he figured that Daryl was already set, somewhere inside of him, on giving her one himself.

But there was Carol to think about.

After all that she'd been through with losing two of her own, and two she'd adopted on top of that, Daryl just didn't know how well she'd warm to the idea. He could make up scenarios in his mind where she absolutely refused the child. He could make up scenarios, too, where all it took was a glance at the baby to make her melt and accept her entirely. The trouble was, he couldn't know which scenario was absolutely likely to occur.

And he wouldn't know until he'd talked to her.

Daryl looked at the baby that was sucking down the contents of the bottle slowly but happily. Then he looked at Olivia. The woman spent almost all of her days hidden out in the supply rooms. He knew that most of that time she spend working on craft projects and reading—there weren't too many people, after all, that needed something twenty four hours a day. She had, more than most of them, a lot of free time. And right now? He was glad for that.

"You hold her," Daryl said. She started to shake her head at him and he responded back with a nod. "Just a bit," he said. "She's good. Just—hold her. Let her eat this. She'll probably sleep. She ain't that old."

"I don't want a baby..." Olivia stammered.

"I didn't say keep her," Daryl clarified. "I said hold her. I'll be back for her. Just gotta go—do something. You hold her. For me? And I'll be back."

Olivia actually cut her eyes around the space like, in the empty building, she was going to find someone to pass the relatively easy task off to. She didn't find anyone, though, and finally sighed. She offered her arms to Daryl and he got the baby settled there, trying to keep her from losing her bottle. He wasn't entirely happy with the finished product—Olivia looked more like she was holding a ticking bomb than a baby—but it would have to do for the moment.

Daryl held his hands up to her like he would if he were trying to calm someone they were approaching on a scouting mission.

"Hold her," he instructed again. "Just a little. I'ma be back."

Olivia nodded at him, unsurely on her face, and Daryl left before she could have even a second to change her mind about her new assignment. He almost jogged out the door and he headed straight in the direction of where he knew that the training would be taking place.

He had to find Carol, and then? He had to have a talk with her. Though he was as concerned about that as Olivia might be about her charge, he had a good feeling about it.

It might take more time than Olivia wanted it to, but he was pretty sure he could keep his word. He'd be back.


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: Here we go, another chapter here. I'm sorry that everything is so slow, but I'm incredibly busy lately. I hardly have any time to do things like write. I apologize for that, but more is coming.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"I think I can read the signs pretty well," Carol said. "Bringing a baby in here would be like...it would be guaranteeing..."

She didn't have to finish. She wasn't going to finish either. Her voice was already getting that thin and dry sound to it that it sometimes got before it seemed to fade out entirely. Daryl understood what she was saying—he'd understood it for the past half hour or hour or however long they'd been going back and forth since he'd brought her up from the training area—but he wasn't accepting it.

"Carol—we are not... _kryptonite_ for children," Daryl said. " _You_ are not kryptonite for children," he added quickly, not giving her time to even say the words that he could seem to see forming in her mouth. "If we could go back? Things might be different. It might all be different."

Carol shook her head at him. She kept her eyes locked on him, and she shook her head. Then she sighed and she studied the floor for a moment, but she didn't let up on the shaking.

"I can't do this," she said. "There are so many more people here. There are people who _want_ children. People who would be _happy_ to have her."

"You could feed her," Daryl said. "You could give her what she needs."

"Maggie..." Carol started. Daryl interrupted her before she could get too far with that train of thought.

"Don't you think I didn't talk to them," Daryl said. "I did. Went straight there after I got her checked out. They're movin' to Hilltop. They don't want to try to move with two kids—and I don't blame them one bit. Maggie's got her hands full enough with Hershel. And anybody else around here? We got nobody else right now that could feed her. She'd be eating up what little bit of formula we've found and that don't make no sense when we could save that for when we've really got an emergency—and no other options."

Daryl knew well the look on Carol's face. She knew that he was telling the truth, but it didn't mean that she wanted to agree with him. She didn't want to accept it. But, at least if she was agreeing with him, it meant that they were making progress from the absolute and definitive "No" she'd given him to begin with.

"We're the best chance she's got," Daryl said. "You know it's true. We're probably two of the only people around here that could—Carol? We could protect her if we had to go on the _road_. You and me? We could protect her _out there_. Prob'ly better than anybody could. We sure can protect her in here."

Carol was finally looking at him again. She was swallowing, repeatedly, the action visible with the continuous bobbing of her throat. She shook her head gently, but this time it was with a great deal less conviction than before.

"Maision," she said softly. She let it trail off at his name, though. She didn't add anything to it. Daryl waited her out for a moment, just to see if she might go in some direction that he wasn't expecting, but she never finished for him.

Now it was Daryl's turn to shake his head.

"What happened to Maison?" He said, his own throat suddenly tightening to the point that he felt it necessary to try to clear it—as though something were stuck there even though it had been hours since he'd eaten. "What happened to him? Denise said it weren't us. Just—one of those things."

"One of those things," Carol repeated back to him softly. The corners of her mouth turned up gently, but Daryl didn't mistake the smile as anything sincere. She shook her head at him again, a little of her earlier conviction returning. "I can't do this," Carol said. "I've got milk. And—if someone needs it? I'll...pump it and give it to them. But that's all that I can do."

Daryl ran his tongue around his teeth and considered her. He was trying to read her. He was trying to tell if there was room for him to change her mind or not. Admittedly, he'd had his doubts about the whole thing, but the more that he talked to her about it, the more he became certain that he wanted the little girl. He became certain that, as Glenn had said, she needed them. And they needed her.

He had talked himself into a position where he couldn't imagine that there could be anything negative to come from the arrangement.

Their house, after all, was ready for a baby. The nursery was ready for a baby. The clothes were gathered. The blankets were gathered, clean, and folded. Cloth diapers were folded on a changing table that had rarely been used. Daryl, himself, had found a few sets of crib sheets and only one of them had even been taken out of its packaging.

They were ready for a baby. They had been more than ready for one. They'd been _excited_ for what it could mean for them and for their lives together. The days before Maison had come, they'd both been almost giddy with the expectation. And in the days that he'd been there? Daryl couldn't remember having ever felt that happy. That _whole_. And he'd certainly never seen Carol the way that she was when she tended the little boy.

Life had always been precious, but it was even more precious in a world where death seemed to prevail.

Maison would never come back to them. With any luck, and with the help of Denise who was sure that she could do something to keep it from happening, they'd never have another baby of their own. But that didn't mean that they couldn't have a child. It didn't mean that they couldn't be parents. It didn't mean that they'd never have the chance to share that part of their lives together.

There was a tiny little girl who needed them, and they needed her. It was the best fit that there could possibly be.

"Carol—she needs the milk, but she needs more than that," Daryl said. "She's gotta have—somebody to hold her. She's gotta have somebody to _care about_ her. Somebody that's gonna—teach her how to survive."

"And someone will do that," Carol said. "Someone around here has to want her, Daryl. Just because you asked Glenn and Maggie and they said no? That doesn't mean there's nobody who wants her. Ask Michonne, even. Ask anyone. You find someone who wants her and you can tell them that I'll give them whatever milk I can."

Daryl swallowed. He nodded his head at her, slowly and gently.

She was tense. It looked like she was almost bowed up at him. She was preparing to pounce if she felt the need to do it. Immediately, when he nodded at her, he saw her muscles relax. Her shoulders dropped forward. Then they almost seemed to sag under the collected weight of everything she was carrying on them. She let out a breath. She looked lighter if not more exhausted.

Daryl swallowed again.

"I guess I'm gonna be back," he said.

"You do what you need to do," Carol said.

Daryl nodded again.

"I'ma do what I need to do," Daryl said. "You—think you could start pumping? Have something ready for her? I don't know how long she's been without eating. Don't know how long that formula's gonna hold her over."

Carol nodded her acceptance of the plan.

"I'll have milk ready," she said. "For whoever needs it. They can—they can pick it up or...I could take it to them. Whichever they want."

"You just keep it here," Daryl said. "Because—I'm bringing her back here."

Carol opened her mouth at Daryl, but no words came out to put whatever thoughts she was having into spoken language.

"I want her," Daryl said. "You said find somebody that wants her and—Carol? I want her. We lost Maison. And you know how sorry I am for that. Hell—don't an hour go by that I don't think about him. Wish he was still here. Wish..." Daryl broke off, cleared his throat again to remove the imaginary obstruction, and then he continued. "Wish I could—we could just— _hold_ him again. I think I hear him crying. All the damn time. Today? When I heard her crying? I thought—I was just hearing him. In my head. Didn't even realize that everybody else could hear it too because I'm so damn used to being the only one that can—that can hear him..."

Carol shook her head at him. Her lips were pressed so tightly together that they almost disappeared into each other.

 _Daryl understood. He wasn't the only one that heard him._

"I wonder—what the hell he'd have been like," Daryl said. "Get mad sometimes because..."

But then it was his turn to break off. He could tell Carol that he got mad because it didn't seem fair. He could tell her that, sometimes, he saw Maggie or Glenn with Hershel and his chest ached. It wasn't that he wished for them to lose their child, but he did question why it was that he and Carol had to lose theirs. Even, for a moment, when he'd seen the little girl he'd almost been furious that, out there, someone else had gotten to keep theirs while he and Carol had put their child to rest in a rudimentarily made box in the ground.

But he didn't have to tell Carol that. She would understand it even without him saying it. He saw the same thing, sometimes, as it flashed across her features. He knew that's why she often had to leave places when someone brought Hershel in. She begrudged no one their loved ones, but it didn't mean that she was ready to accept that, for some reason, she wasn't allowed her own.

"I want her," Daryl said. "And I think you're gonna love her. At least—you're gonna like her. She's a pretty little thing. She fusses, but—it's because she's scared. She's hungry. You're gonna like her when you see her."

Carol shook her head gently at him.

"I don't doubt that I would...like her," Carol said. "I just—don't—I just— _can't_."

Daryl decided, in that moment, he wasn't going to let her win. He let her win most things. Since they'd made their relationship official and since they'd moved in together, Daryl had tried to give Carol everything she wanted. He'd tried to make everything just the way that she might like it. She deserved that, after all, and he got a warm happiness from seeing her pleased with something—no matter how small it was. This time, though, it was going to be Daryl that won. One way or another.

He set his face on purpose, hoping it conveyed his conviction, and then he nodded his head at her.

"I hope you change your mind," Daryl said. "And—I think you will. But, if you don't want to see her right now? You'll just leave the milk for me—just like you said you would for whoever wanted her—and I'll handle the rest of it."

Carol almost looked more amused than she looked irritated. Almost.

"You're going to take care of a newborn on your own?" Carol asked.

Daryl nodded.

"You hated taking half the wake up shifts," Carol said.

Daryl shrugged.

"Do what'cha gotta do," he responded.

"You think that you're going to bring her here," Carol said. "And that—I'm going to take care of her. That I'm going to want to take care of her."

Daryl shook his head.

"You just leave the milk for me," Daryl said. "I'll keep her out of your way. You stay out of hers. Until you're ready. When you're ready..." He stopped, but then he ignored her head shaking. She might not be ready right now. That much might be true. It might take her another hour—or even a month or two—to work up the courage to face the infant, but eventually she'd be ready. Daryl knew her. He knew her better, sometimes, than he knew himself. "You just leave it to me."

He decided to seal things at that point by simply leaving Carol there, in the kitchen where they seemed to have most of their discussions, and heading for the front door of their house.

"Daryl..." Carol called. He stalled his steps, but he didn't look back at her. He was keeping his back to her to keep the conversation as "closed" as it could be for the moment. He wanted her to have her time to think—and to do whatever else she might need to do in his absence. "You don't even realize that I'm not good for her. Having her here—it isn't good for her."

Daryl swallowed.

"Best thing for her," Daryl responded, keeping his back to Carol. "Best thing for her. Best thing for me. And—sometime? Best thing for you. _You_ don't even realize that. But—you will. She's gonna be hungry when I get back."

Definitively sealing the conversation for the moment, Daryl picked up his steps again and left the house before Carol responded to him. Slowly, making sure to give her as much time as possible and also to give himself time to fully think about what he'd signed up for, Daryl made his way back toward the pantry to find Olivia and relieve her of her cargo.

 _His daughter._


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: Here's another chapter. It's one from Carol's perspective. There are a few more to go in this story. Four more if I've planned accurately.**

 **I'm offering a trigger warning for discussion of infant/child mortality. It's not terribly graphic, but there's enough there that I'd like to offer the warning for anyone who might feel particularly triggered by it.**

 **Also, there's an AN at the end about how I write Michonne's back story, but suffice it to say that I go more with the comics than with the show for that.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Carol almost felt a little foolish, lingering back three steps from Michonne at the door of her house—the place she called home—but she hadn't quite figured out how to breach the topic with the woman yet. She was working, still, on finding the words that she felt most appropriate to use.

"So—what's in there?" Michonne asked, her voice low, barely above a whisper. She peeked into Carol's window like she was assessing the situation and Carol felt even more foolish. Michonne's hand was wrapped around her katana's handle, the blade was slightly exposed as she toyed with it. That was one of the comforting things about Michonne, whether or not she appeared ready, she was always ready to respond to a situation, even if she might not have all the facts yet.

"Please just—go inside?" Carol said.

Michonne looked at her, brow furrowed, and she tried the knob like she expected it to be locked. It wasn't locked, of course, and the door swung open. Michonne never moved her hand from the handle of the katana as she peeked inside the house before she committed to stepping into the door. Carol followed her inside realizing that, without even meaning to do so, maybe she'd managed to make the situation sound a little worse than it was.

Inside the house, the baby was crying out from the nursery. Carol had been gone, if she was guessing correctly, no more than five minutes. Her words to Michonne—she needed her for something at her house—had gotten the woman moving and moving quickly. The slowest part of their approach had been the time spent lingering at the door to assess the danger level.

And now Michonne looked even more baffled than she'd looked outside.

"Baby..." she said. It seemed she was suffering, at the moment, from what had been plaguing Carol. It was an acute inability to put anything into words. Carol nodded at her. "Where did...?"

"Daryl found her," Carol said. "On the run. He found her and—she's crying."

Michonne raised her eyebrows at Carol and visibly sucked in a breath. She glanced around the living area of the house before she settled her eyes back on Carol.

"Pick her up?" She offered.

Carol frowned at her and Michonne immediately looked apologetic.

"I don't think that I understand what's going on here," Michonne offered as something of an apology. "Daryl found a baby on a run and..."

"And in the true nature of every _child_ who brought something home that they were going to take care of? He stepped out to do something for someone—and she's crying," Carol said. She apologized immediately for the words as soon as they finished rolling out of her mouth. Michonne's expression said that she was excused and that she would give her time to get around to saying what she really wanted to say instead of simply saying the first thing that came to her mind. Carol went and sat on the couch. She put her head in her hands and put things together the best that she could. "I told him that I couldn't do this. I told him that I couldn't have her. It's not..."

Carol stopped.

As crazy as it might sound, and she thought it sounded crazy too, she couldn't help but believe that having the baby there was dooming the child to a short and tragic life. Something, somewhere, had clicked into place in the universe that had declared that Carol couldn't and shouldn't be around children. Even though being a mother had been the most wonderful thing in her life, before all of this had happened, the turn of the world had changed things for Carol. She'd lost Sophia. There had been nothing that she could do to save her. She hadn't known to protect Mika, and she hadn't known how to teach her to protect herself. She hadn't know what to do to help Lizzie. Part of her, especially now, believed that the only reason she made it back to Rick with Judith was because she was with Tyreese.

When she'd been carrying Maison, she'd gone to sleep every night fearing that something was going to happen. She was going to lose him. He was going to be stillborn. It wasn't possible for her—after whatever had clicked—to have a healthy baby. Even beyond the fact that, medically, it wasn't a good idea for her at her age, there was so much in the universe that seemed against it. But he'd come and nothing tragic had happened. She'd marveled at the baby, holding him the first time that they put him in her arms, more than she had with Sophia—more than she imagined most mothers even did when they held their newborns—because he was fine. He was perfect.

And she'd thought that maybe, just maybe, things had turned around for her. After all, she was different now than she'd ever been before. She was stronger now than she'd ever been before. She had a network of friends around her and she had happiness with Daryl. And she had a baby boy that, despite whatever odds might have been against him, was absolutely perfect. And every day of his life, she'd marveled at his perfection. She hadn't even minded the frazzled exhaustion that had come with having a newborn.

So she'd felt like she was dying the morning that she'd gone in and she'd realized that his squirming about in the crib had nothing to do with naturally waking up and thinking about requesting a diaper change.

Or maybe she'd just _wanted_ to die. Now she wasn't sure either way.

The only thing she was sure of was the fact that she didn't feel that it could be good for any child to even be in her presence, less likely that it could be good for one to be entrusted to her care. Daryl wanted the child because he wanted a child—because they'd both loved their moments of being parents together with Maison—but he didn't understand the way that she felt. Maybe he couldn't. And he'd brought the girl home, and he'd done a fine job of tending her so far, with the promise that Carol didn't have to even be around her, but he'd stepped out for a moment and the baby was crying.

And it felt like each of her cries was ripping through the tissue in the core of Carol's body.

Something inside her wanted to respond to them, but something else inside her warned it could be the worst thing that she could do for the child.

So she'd done the only thing that she could think to do. She'd gone to get Michonne—another mother who might understand. But she couldn't quite bring herself to admit to Michonne all the thoughts—thoughts that she felt were mad—that were going through her mind. And seeing that she couldn't speak, and maybe understanding without the words, Michonne simply took off her katana, rested it on the floor against the wall, and disappeared into the nursery.

A moment later, there was silence from the room and the cries stopped sending the searing pain through Carol. Something else entirely, instead, caused the aching in her chest.

Michonne stayed in the room for some time, almost long enough that Carol considered calling out to make sure that she was fine, and then she came back.

"She needed a diaper change," Michonne said. "And—I think she might be hungry?"

Carol shook her head.

"Shouldn't be," she said. "But if she is—there's milk in the fridge for her."

Michonne ignored the comment about the milk entirely. She walked over to the chair in the sitting area and rearranged it so that it was closer to where Carol was sitting on the couch. She sat down on the edge of it, leaned forward, and stared at Carol until Carol had no choice but to look at her.

"You don't want her?" Michonne asked.

 _I do want her. That isn't it at all._

Carol shook her head gently at Michonne.

"I'm not good for her," Carol said. "I can't even—look at her. Just hearing her?"

She didn't finish. She didn't have to. Michonne was already nodding her head.

"Makes everything in your body hurt," Michonne said. "Makes you want to—stab your own ear drums not to hear it anymore."

Carol neither confirmed nor denied that Michonne was right, but she knew that she didn't have to. A very faint flash of a smile played on Michonne's lips before it faded and she licked them.

"Beth told me that—we have word for widows and orphans, but it seems like we should have a word for mothers who've lost their children," Michonne said. "We still don't have a word for it." Carol didn't respond. "When I found the formula? For Judith? I didn't even know who it was for. All I knew was that there was a baby who needed milk. I didn't want to trust people. I didn't want to be around them. But I _couldn't_ let that baby starve. So I took the formula to her. For a while? I couldn't breathe every time I heard her cry. I'd worked so hard to—shut it all down. But when she cried? I realized I still had no control. Every time she cried, I heard _them_ crying."

"You're wonderful with Judith," Carol said. "She _loves_ you."

Michonne nodded.

"And she loves you," Michonne said. "You were—you still are—like the first mother she ever got the chance to know."

"It's different now," Carol said.

Michonne hummed.

"It was different for me too," Michonne confirmed. "But then—my girls? They were sweet. Beautiful. Perfect angels."

Carol smiled a little to herself. It had taken a while for Michonne to open up to her about her loss. It had taken a while for Carol to open up to Michonne, too. She might not have told her every detail—because many of those she simply didn't want to share—but Michonne understood that she'd suffered a great deal of loss since the world had become what it was.

But Michonne could finally talk about her daughters without drawing back into the dark place that she used to go to—a place she told Carol about—and without even having a hint of that darkness come over her. Carol credited a good bit of it to the constant presence of Judith in Michonne's life now and the role that the woman had seemed to take on with her.

"I'm sure they were," Carol offered gently. Michonne nodded again.

"But I thought that—by not caring for Judith? By not— _allowing_ myself to get close to anyone else? To any children? I wasn't doing a service to their memory. I wasn't doing anything for them. They're—they're not coming back. And I have to accept that. But me loving Judith? It isn't hurting them." Michonne said.

"I understand that," Carol confirmed. "I do. I really, really do. But—it feels like...it's so much more than that."

Michonne raised her eyebrows at Carol.

"Is it something you want to talk about?" Michonne asked.

Carol shook her head gently.

"Not really," she admitted. "I know what it would sound like if I did. And—I promise that I'm not crazy. Or—at least I don't think I am."

Michonne laughed quietly.

"We're all crazy," Michonne said. "At this point it's just sorting out the dangerous crazy from the run-of-the-mill everyday crazy."

Carol forced a smile, but she didn't think it was too convincing. It was obvious, when Michonne spoke next, that she was right. She hadn't convinced the woman at all.

"You're not crazy," Michonne said. "But—I won't presume to say that I know what you're going through. When I lost my girls? I had something to blame it on. I could blame it on the world. I could blame it on the situation. I could blame it on the Walkers. And—it still drove me crazy. It still wakes me up at night. So I won't presume to say that I know what you're going through. But—I'll tell you that you're not crazy. And—I'll tell you that...if you want to? You have a lot to offer a baby. I saw you with Maison."

"You know what happened," Carol said.

Michonne nodded.

"And back in the day we called it— _crib death_. We called it— _SIDS_ ," Michonne said. "And it happened, and it was horrible even then. But I knew mothers that got through it, somehow. And some of them went on to have another child. Some didn't. They all had something in common, though."

Carol raised her eyebrows, this time, in question at Michonne and she hummed to confirm that she wanted the rest of the information that MIchonne may or may not be planning to share with her.

"It was horrible, but they got through it," Michonne said. "And—it wasn't their fault."

Carol forced herself to swallow a few times in rapid succession. More than thinking about how she felt about it, it was the sound in Michonne's voice that got to her. It was the instant, although unspoken, confirmation that Michonne knew exactly how Carol was feeling about her part in the loss of every child she felt she'd touched.

 _I wish someone could tell my heart that._

But Carol couldn't find any words. Michonne stood up, stretched herself, and then she put the chair back where she'd found it. She walked over and rested a hand on Carol's shoulder.

"She's a beautiful baby," Michonne said. "Have you seen her?" Carol shook her head and Michonne hummed. "You should. When you're ready. "The first time I held Judith? I thought my...my chest would...explode. But it didn't. And then? All of a sudden? It was the best feeling that I'd felt in a long time." Michonne hummed again and Carol heard the soft release of breath, the sound of a silent laugh. "She let me cry with her," Michonne said. "And she still does. Sometimes. When I need it."

"You still need it," Carol said, not even sure herself if she meant it to be a question or a statement.

"Always will, I think," Michonne said. "I'll find Daryl and send him back here. If she's not hungry now, she will be soon."

Carol brought her hand up and rested it over Michonne's. Michonne twined their fingers together and squeezed Carol's in response.

"Take your time," Michonne said. "There's plenty of it."

Michonne moved her hand and didn't wait for Carol to speak—not that Carol knew what she might say. Michonne didn't need her to say anything anyway. She picked up her katana, put it back on her back, and walked straight to the door and out of it without looking back. Carol watched her through the window as she slipped down the porch steps and strolled off, presumably in search of Daryl who, having taken on the responsibility of the little one, had slipped away too long from his post.

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 **AN: Please note that I write Michonne's back story as the comic version where she lost her daughters. I'm not unaware that the show made her loss a little boy. I simply prefer the comic version of things because that's the version that I first related to Michonne, back when I first fell in love with her character.** **If you read my other stories, you won't find this surprising at all. If you don't/haven't, however, I felt I should explain. For me, Michonne had daughters.**


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: Here we go, another chapter here for those following along at home.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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The cold shoulder wouldn't have been an accurate description of what Carol had been giving Daryl. It was much too warm and inviting for the reality of the past two days. She'd been freezing him out with an intensity that almost frightened him. They were living, still, in the same space, but it was almost like she could ignore entirely his presence. He'd expected, at least for a little while, that she might try to entirely ignore the baby, but he hadn't expected the same to extend to him.

The baby had no name yet. At this point, it didn't matter much to her what Daryl called her. Sweetheart she accepted, Thing even seemed to work, but Baby was simply what Daryl stuck to most often. She didn't question it and he was trying to wait a little while to saddle her with a name. After all, Carol might come around, at some point, and she might want to be involved in deciding what to call the little one.

Or she might not come around at all.

The only sign that Daryl had that Carol was even aware of what was going on was the fact that she spent her "free time" pumping milk that she left for him in jars in the refrigerator. She didn't say anything about the milk, but it appeared there throughout the day. And even though Daryl might look at it and think that it wasn't enough, it seemed to satisfy the baby, so he guessed that was all that mattered.

He was starting to gain a type of respect that he'd never had before, though, for single parents. In his mind, he'd figured that he'd be able to leave the girl alone several hours of the day. After all, he had been able to leave Maison without any problem. Now, though, it was dawning on him that all the time he'd been able to simply disappear to do other things, he'd been leaving the little boy with Carol to take care of him. He'd gotten hours here and there because she'd been there to pick up his slack. He'd slept at night because, instead of him having to sit and feed Maison from a bottle, he could sleep while Carol handled all the things like nighttime feedings. It was a whole different situation when he was handling absolutely everything about the baby by himself. His understanding, now, of people who raised children alone was on an entirely different level than it ever had been before.

Two days and Daryl was exhausted. He was keeping his promise, though, of keeping the baby out of sight and—as much as he could—out of mind for Carol. That meant, though, that he was also keeping the baby out of sight for everyone else and he couldn't count on anyone who might simply pop in to relieve him for a while.

He felt a little like he was caught up in a cycle. He never really knew if the baby was hungry, or wanted to be changed, or just liked to see him squirm. At least, not before he'd run the gamut of possibilities. Diapers were easiest to tell. Then he could try to feed her. Was it too hot? Was it too cold? He wasn't sure if she could be bored or cold or hot. It was all a game of experimentation. And once he'd found the right combination, it was just waiting to do it all over again as soon as there was a new answer to the question of "what did she need" that needed to be found. And he was exhausted. So when she finally went to sleep, he almost danced out of the nursery and toward the bedroom. At the moment, it didn't matter that Carol wasn't really talking to him—he wasn't really in the mood to be talked to. All he wanted was whatever precious sleep the baby would let him have.

It wasn't the baby, though, that woke Daryl from sleep. He woke, instead, to Carol's thrashing around next to him. For a moment, in a fog, he didn't realize what was happening. Nightmares, really, weren't all that uncommon. And, more often than not, they didn't draw attention to each other's nightmares—not unless their "company" was requested. Daryl sat up, though, at the same time that Carol sat up. She'd woken herself from whatever was going in her unconscious mind, but even in the dark he could tell that she wasn't calm yet. He could hear that her breathing was labored.

He could hear that she was still suffering from whatever it was that she'd seen in her mind.

There was the distinct sound of her hands searching out things on the bedside table, and Daryl rolled and switched on a lamp to bathe the room in a soft glow since she seemed unable to find hers. She'd already swung her feet over the side of the bed. Her back was to him. And now he could see that her labored breathing wasn't the only the after effect of dream induced panic. She was overtaken with emotion.

Daryl could, if he wanted to treat her in a frosty manner to match the silence she'd been guarding, ignore her, but he wasn't going to. He thought better of it the minute that it even crossed his mind that ignoring her might be the thing to do. He scrambled out from under the cover on his side of the bed, crossed the mattress—which felt like an epic feat at the moment—and eased himself into position to sit next to her. He waited a moment to touch her before he finally rested his palm on her back.

"She's not crying," Carol said quietly. "I thought—she was crying."

The house was quiet. It probably wouldn't be for long, but for the moment it was quiet. Daryl cleared his throat, still working his way through his fog.

"She ain't crying," he confirmed. "Went down a little while ago. Gonna cry soon—I'm sure. But she ain't crying."

"Is she not crying because she's—not crying or?" Carol asked. She stopped, but Daryl heard the rest of it.

"She's asleep," Daryl said. "Ain't been asleep that long. Won't be asleep that much longer. Not if her schedule keeps up like it's going. Now I know why she was—hanging in a bag in the trees. Cryin' every couple of hours for something? She'd have pulled every damn Walker down on them in the area. Like constantly ringing a dinner bell."

"Her mother was smart," Carol said. "The bag was smart. It was a good idea."

"You woulda thought about something like that," Daryl said.

Carol shook her head at him. She continued shaking it.

"I told Ryan I would look after them like they were my own," Carol said. Daryl knew immediately what she was talking about and he was pretty sure that he could guess what her dream might have been about. She laughed to herself, but it was insincere laughter. "I kept good on that promise," she said, a hint of bitterness coming through in her tone—it was bitterness at this world.

"You couldn't help what happened," Daryl said. "None of it. And I know you don't understand that, but you gotta try to understand it. None of what's happened—none of it—was your fault."

"I _killed_ Lizzie," Carol said.

"To keep her from killing herself," Daryl said. "To keep her from killing Judith. Tyreese. You, even. And then? Killing herself. Getting herself killed. Torn apart by Walkers. You killed her to save her from dying a whole lot worse than the way she did. If I ever lost my mind? Ended up thinking the way she did? I would hope somebody would do the same thing to me before I really did something horrible."

"She didn't understand this world," Carol said. "She didn't understand...Walkers. And who could blame her? Mika? She didn't understand this world. Sophia? And I failed them all in that. I failed them because...it was _my job_ to help them understand what they needed to understand."

"You ain't God," Daryl said. "Sophia didn't understand completely because...hell...none of us did, Carol. We were all still figuring shit out as we went along. You done what you could do for her. You couldn't have saved her. None of us could. Because we didn't know then what we know now. We weren't used to it like we are now."

Daryl rubbed Carol's back in response to the shaking that he could feel pulsing through her body. She reached and found one of the folded handkerchiefs from the nightstand—maybe what she'd been in search of earlier—and she hid her face behind it while she wiped at her nose and eyes.

"That weren't on you no more'n it was on all of us," Daryl said. "Tyreese was with you. With Mika and Lizzie. He couldn't do nothin' neither."

"Tyreese wasn't ready for this world either," Carol said.

"None of us were," Daryl said. "Still aren't, sometimes. But we keep going. That's what we've gotta do. Weren't your fault. I've told you that before. I'll tell you that again, too, if I gotta keep saying it. Because if you can't believe me? How am I supposed to believe it wasn't my fault that Beth ended up at that hospital? How am I supposed to believe that I couldn't have stopped them getting her and..."

"You couldn't stop that," Carol said quickly, interrupting him. "You couldn't stop them taking her and you certainly couldn't stop what she did. She decided to do that. On her own. Nobody saw it coming and nobody could've stopped it."

"And you can't stop the world from turning just the way it's going to neither," Daryl responded back, this time with the same matter-of-fact tone that she was using on him. "It's a shame. And it keeps us up late at night. But it's nothing that we can stop. All we got is what we got here and what we got now. And you and me? We both know that ain't carved in stone. It could all end..." He snapped his fingers, louder than he intended, and Carol jumped. But he thought that she got his point.

And maybe someone else got his point too, or either it was simply time for another round of figuring out what the baby needed, because he heard a sharp howl from the nursery that was followed by a softer round of the cries that would continue until Daryl answered the call.

Carol looked at him, expectation in her eyes, and he chewed at his lip.

"She's probably hungry," he said.

"You don't have enough milk?" Carol asked.

Daryl hummed in the affirmative.

"Could be easier, though, if you wanted to—just feed her," he said. Carol began to shake her head at him and he realized that he may be pushing that a little too far. It may be a little too fast. But she was thawing to him some, that was clear, and it meant that she might be thawing to the little girl. After all, she was concerned about her—and whether or not she was peacefully asleep—so it was fair to say that there was something there.

"You wanna just see her?" Daryl asked. "Look at her? You don't gotta—do anything else. Don't even have to touch her if you don't want to."

Carol hesitated and Daryl got to his feet. If she didn't want to look at her, she didn't have to. He'd keep his promise of keeping them apart for as long as he could. Whether Carol wanted to see her or not, though, it was clear that the baby wanted to see him. So he started out of the bedroom to go and begin his regular routine of trying to create the best experience for the little girl that he could.

"Daryl?" Carol called, getting his attention. He stopped and looked back at her. She hadn't given up her position on the bed and she was still tugging at her nose—which was likely on its way to being raw—with the handkerchief. "Bring her? Just—for a minute?"

Daryl nodded at her, but he didn't say anything. A minute, an hour, whatever it was or it ended up being, he'd take it at this point.


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: Here we go, another chapter here. As I've said before, this is just a short fic. We have two chapters to go, by my calculations.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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There was an awkward "warm up" period when Daryl brought the little girl—who got a diaper change whether she really needed it or not—into the bedroom where Carol was still sitting on the edge of the bed. Carol eyed the baby, almost suspiciously, from across the room and Daryl lingered with her in the doorway for a few moments before he approached her. He was going to give her time to back out if that's what she wanted. After a few moments, though, it was Carol that approached him. She got up from the bed, took a few final swipes at her nose with the handkerchief, and then she walked over to him to get a clear look at the little girl that, though she was wide awake, seemed momentarily satisfied to just be cuddled into his arms.

"She's pretty," Carol offered quietly. Daryl hummed in response.

"She is," he agreed.

"She's—little," Carol said.

Daryl wasn't entirely certain if she was referring to the fact that the baby was very young, which she was, or if she meant that the girl was small for her age. Either way, she was correct, so he simply agreed to the statement and then filled in the rest of the information himself.

"Guessin' about three weeks," Daryl said. "Probably ain't eat as regularly as she should have. At least—not until she got here. She's been eating pretty regularly. Eats good, too. Slow, but she finishes the bottle every time."

Carol didn't respond, but she didn't back away either. And as long as the baby was OK with the fact that they were just standing there, Daryl wasn't going to push it either way. He let Carol look at the girl and, sometimes, it seemed like the baby was looking back at her instead of probably just staring off into space and contemplating how long she was going to wait before announcing some other demand that she might have for Daryl. After a short span of allowing everyone to get comfortable with each other, Daryl decided to push the envelope just a little more.

"You—wanna hold her?" Daryl asked. Carol looked concerned and Daryl almost laughed at her expression over such an innocuous question, but he held it back. "Just right here," Daryl said. "Sit with her? I'ma sit..." And he did sit. He went over to the bed, sat on the edge of it, and situated the baby so that he was more comfortable. She didn't seem to mind the change, and Carol joined them. And then, after just a few seconds more of seeing that nothing unexpected was going to happen, she looked more relaxed.

Daryl didn't know exactly how long they sat there, but it was long enough that the baby finally gave in and started the whining that Daryl had been expecting since he got her out of the crib. By his calculations, she was hungry. It was time for her to eat and she'd learned to expect that her requests would be honored by him. Maybe not in the most timely manner, but they'd be honored. He stood up with the baby, intending to take her with him while he warmed the bottle, and then he thought better of it.

"She—uh—probably wants a bottle," Daryl said. "Usually I just leave her in the crib while I warm it up, but—you wanna hold her for me? Just long enough for me to warm up what there is for her?"

Carol held his eyes a moment, but then she finally nodded her head. He didn't expect her to look thrilled about it, and she met his expectation. But she offered her arms to him and she accepted the girl when he settled her into her arms just the way he would have if he'd been passing her Maison back because he'd begun to fuss. Quietly, Daryl assured her that he'd be back as soon as the bottle was made. He slipped out of the bedroom and then he took the longest time that he possibly could crossing the short span of their house for the kitchen.

The baby's fussing grew louder and more demanding, but Daryl took his time just the same. She wasn't going to starve to death. Not even close. She'd possibly had more to eat in two days than she'd had in all her life before she came to live with them. She could hold out a little longer on getting the bottle—but this might be the only chance she got to make the impression that she needed to make. So he took his time getting to the kitchen. He took his time finding a bottle and washing it again, even though he'd washed it before, to make sure that it was clean. He took his time warming the milk from the Mason jar on the stove instead of in the microwave, and he took his time making the bottle with the milk.

And by the time that he'd taken his time doing everything he could possibly think to do, the sounds from the girl had quieted. She'd, apparently, given up on protesting her starvation. Maybe Carol had rocked her to sleep or maybe she'd succumbed to the hunger, though Daryl was banking on the first much more heavily than the latter, but whatever it was, she'd quieted and Carol hadn't called for help.

When Daryl came back with the partially filled bottle, he knocked gently at the door and pushed it open. He looked directly at the bed, where he'd left Carol, but she'd changed position. She was no longer carefully perched on the side of the bed. Instead she was sitting with her back against the headboard and she paid him no attention when he came into the room. Daryl decided, immediately, he could've taken as long as he'd desired to make the bottle because he wasn't going to be needing it at any rate.

Carol had decided that she had the power and the means to hush the little girl's cries, and she was doing just that—and the baby didn't seem to mind the new method of feeding at all in comparison to the rubber nippled bottles that Daryl had been offering her.

Daryl stayed right where he was.

"You were taking forever," Carol said, her voice low. "She was getting worked up."

It was the first indication that she was even aware of his presence, though she wasn't looking at him when she spoke. Daryl chewed his lip. Was she justifying feeding the baby to him or to herself? Either way, he figured he'd do best to respond.

"Couldn't find the bottle," he lied. "And then—watched pot. Didn't mean to take so long."

Carol glanced at him. A flicker of a smile crossed her lips. Even at this distance, she could probably tell that he was lying. But even if she could, she didn't look entirely bothered by it.

"She doesn't seem to mind," Carol said. Daryl instantly felt all his muscles relax at her tone of voice. As tired as he was, it made him want to melt onto the floor and get some of the precious sleep that he'd been denied in the last couple of nights. Instead, he finally moved his feet and made his way around to his side of the bed. He offered Carol the bottle, and he couldn't bite back his smile when she eyed it and then eyed him.

"You want it?" He asked, waving it at her again before he put it on the nightstand beside the bed without getting a verbal response from her. "She's happy," he pointed out. "You OK?"

Carol focused on the baby, and she didn't look at Daryl at all, but she hummed. At first it was neither affirmative nor negative—just a drawn out sound—but she changed her tone at the end to shift it to being affirmative.

"What if..." Carol started, just as Daryl was closing his eyes for a moment to enjoy the peace.

"What if we don't talk about what ifs?" Daryl offered quickly. He opened his eyes to find her looking at him. Maybe her eyes were a little damp. Maybe they just glittered more in the lamplight. Daryl shook his head gently at her. "We don't have any guarantees," he said. "We don't even know that you and me are gonna wake up in the morning. But—she looks pretty happy. And you look..." he broke off. He didn't want to put words, or happiness, in Carol's mouth, so to speak. "You look—good. You look alright there. So how about—we don't talk about what ifs?"

Carol opened her mouth like she might respond, and then she studied the baby again, her brow furrowed. Whatever she was going to say, she either lost it or let it go, because she never gave voice to it. She let, instead, the silence hang there.

"What are you calling her?" Carol asked finally.

Daryl hummed and leaned up enough to get a clearer view of the girl that he'd been tending.

"Just baby for now," he said. "Sweetheart," he offered. "Don't really seem to make no difference to her. Don't care what I call her, as long as I'm coming when she calls."

Carol laughed quietly and low in her throat.

"She needs a name, Daryl," Carol said. Daryl hummed in agreement.

"But I figured you'd be better at that than I would," Daryl said. "Thought you might could help."

He bit back his smile at Carol's expression. She raised her eyebrows at him.

"When you got me to give in?" She asked, teasing behind her words. Daryl shook his head.

"No," he said. "Didn't figure you'd ever give in. But—I figured that eventually I'd ask you what the hell to call her anyway."

Carol's expression softened.

"Good answer," she said. Daryl hummed.

"Yeah," he responded. "You sure do look like you got it. I'ma rest my eyes. Just for a minute. But I ain't goin' nowhere. You just—let me know when you need me."

Carol didn't tell him that he couldn't sleep, and he wasn't waiting around to see if she might change her mind, so Daryl eased himself down into a comfortable position and closed his eyes against the fatigue that he was feeling.

And Carol never woke him to let him know that she needed him.

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Daryl was jerked awake. Whether it was by a bad dream, his memory of whatever dreams he'd had fading as quickly as he opened his eyes, or it was simply by the feeling of something being different in his surrounding, he wasn't sure. He got his bearings in the room, the lamp on Carol's side of the bed was burning now, but his had been switched off. Carol was missing from the room and, gone with her, was the girl. Daryl got out of the bed with a start. He slowed himself, immediately, when he found his feet. He didn't want Carol to see him and misinterpret his concern. He wasn't worried, as she might be, that she wasn't to be trusted when left alone with the girl. He was only concerned that it might be too much for her but that she hadn't woken him to try not to disturb _him_.

 _Too much, too soon._

Outside of the bedroom, Daryl found the house dark. He navigated it, the same as Carol would, without need of lights. He steered his steps directly to the nursery and found a lamp burning in there. It was a small lamp, covered over with a soft white shade, that they'd chosen so that the light wouldn't disturb Maison, but it would give them a way to see the child while they went about fussing over him in the dark.

The room was quiet. Daryl peeked in before he brought his body into the space and announced his presence. Carol had pulled the rocking chair up next to the crib and she was sitting in the chair with a small blanket draped over her shoulders and chest. She was rocking herself with one foot while the baby slept in the crib, entirely unaware of Carol's presence.

"Everything alright?" Daryl asked, keeping his voice low. Carol looked at him like it was the first time that she'd realized he was even awake. Then she looked back at the crib.

"Everything's fine," she said, her voice equally low. "She's asleep. She's just—sleeping."

Daryl hummed.

"You coming back to bed?" He asked.

"She's just sleeping," Carol said again. "Every now and again? She has a dream, I think. She twitches. She wakes up. Not all the way," Carol laughed quietly to herself. "She sucks—something that isn't there. And then? She's just asleep again. I've just been watching her do it."

Carol continued to rock herself with the one foot, gently, and to stare at the crib where she could probably see the baby just beyond the bars. Daryl stood, right where he was, and waited on her. He didn't feel like he should interrupt. He almost felt like he shouldn't even be in the nursery. He had the strange feeling that he was interrupting something—the feeling that came over him whenever he walked into a room and it was clear that two people there were talking and would have preferred not to accommodate his presence.

For a moment, he felt like he was interrupting the conversation between the sleeping infant and the mourning mother.

So he just stood there, as still and as silent as he could be. He tried to make his presence as non-present as possible.

And, after a few minutes, Carol sighed and stopped rocking herself with her foot. She sat forward and folded up the blanket she'd covered herself with to drape it over the arm of the chair. The conversation was done. Whether or not Daryl had meant to interrupt it, he had. He'd broken the sanctity of whatever had been happening there.

"Maybe if I'd watched him a little more," Carol said. She never finished it, though. She left it hanging out there in the air. Daryl's stomach tightened, though, at the words that were left unsaid.

"Couldn't watch him twenty four hours a day," Daryl said. "Can't watch her that much neither." He hummed. "Can't nobody say that you could've done nothing even if you were watching."

"And nobody can say I couldn't have, either," Carol responded.

"I could say the same thing," Daryl said. "Shoulda been in here. Shoulda woke up. Shoulda known there weren't something right. Hell—it's my job to...to _take care_ of you. It was my job to take care of _him_. It was you that even drawed me outta the bed."

"You weren't his mother," Carol said.

Daryl walked around behind her, leaned over the rocker, and put his hands on her shoulders. He squeezed them.

"No, but I was his old man," Daryl said. "And—you know the kinda old man I was gonna be. Not the kind that don't wake up for things like that."

Carol's hand came up and rested on top of Daryl's. He turned his hand just enough so that she could twine their fingers together, both of their hands hanging loosely over her shoulder.

"It wasn't your fault," Carol assured him. "You were—a perfect Daddy."

Daryl laughed to himself, ironically. He'd had so little practice at being a father, all things considered, and perfect had never been a word he'd have used to describe anything that he did for Maison. Or for the little girl that he'd settled in on calling "Baby" for the time being.

But he accepted the praise quietly for what it was.

"Yours neither," he said. "You're a good Ma. You ain't done nothing but right by— _any kid_ —that was yours. Even for a minute."

Carol hummed her protest and shook her head, but Daryl simply tightened his hold on the fingers that he now had captured between his.

"Life is shit sometimes," he confirmed. "You and me? We both know that. Sometimes it's just shit...don't got nothing to do with us."

"You found her," Carol said. "And you brought her in here. And now...?"

"I found her in a bag in the trees," Daryl said. "Her life? Right then? Was the definition of shit. Hell—her whole damn _everybody_ was as dead as they could be, this close to turning, and she was just above where an average height man could reach. I brought her here. She's warm. She's clean. Her belly's full. Looks like she's sleepin' alright to me. She coulda done worse. A whole lot worse."

Carol turned her body in the chair and craned her neck enough to look at him.

"I know you don't want to talk about what ifs," she said. "But—I have to. I have to talk about them because—they seem to be all that I get. So what if she..."

Daryl squeezed her hand hard and cut her off from the surprise of it. He was almost sorry that he did it because it caused his fingers to ache and he was sure that he'd hurt hers more than he intended.

"If something happens?" Daryl confirmed, feeling that he did have to face it to help Carol. "Then it happens. But we know—we done what we could. Already we done more for her than she woulda had, hanging in that bag. But—the only what if I don't hear you asking yourself, and it's just as valid a point as the one you are asking, is what if nothing bad happens? What if—she's just fine? What if she just _grows up_? What if it all just _works out_?"

Carol pulled her possibly crushed hand free from Daryl's grasp and worked her fingers. She didn't answer him. She simply got up, out of the rocking chair, and leaned once over the side of crib to carefully and closely examine the sleeping baby. From where Daryl was standing, it looked like the girl didn't even twitch. She was lost to them, for the time being, to whatever little magic land she went to when she slept. Carol switched off the lamp, bathing the room in darkness, and Daryl made out her shape of solid darker black against the darkness as she left the room. He followed her. She made her way back toward the bedroom and he followed her there, too.

He wasn't sure if she was going to answer him, but soon enough she let him know.

"She's going to have to have a name," Carol said.

Daryl bit his lip, coaxing the smile to stay out of his voice.

"You'll let me know what it is," he said. "Because I already gave you my best ones."

"Baby isn't a name, Daryl," Carol responded.

Daryl let himself chuckle then.

"Like I said," he responded. "You'll let me know."


	10. Chapter 10

**AN: So I was a little off in my calculations and this is actually the final chapter of this short little fic. Thank you to the person who requested it, and who shall remain anonymous. I hope that I did it justice.**

 **And thank you to everyone who has read it and patiently waited for me to finish it.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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Daryl didn't stop Carol when she practically leapt out of the bed in the middle of the night to go and get the baby that requested attention some time before the sun rose. He didn't say anything, either, when she brought her into the bedroom and sat in the bed, her back against the headboard and her bedside lamp burning, to feed her. He didn't mind, at all, falling back to sleep to the soft sounds of the humming that wasn't actually meant to lull him back to sleep.

In fact, Daryl slept most of the night, and he wasn't complaining at all about it.

When he woke up, the house was quiet. The baby hadn't woken again yet and Carol was lost in a deep enough sleep that she was unaware that she was snoring quietly. It was a deeper sleep than Daryl had seen her enjoy for some time. Maybe, even though she hadn't been staying up for the past few nights with the baby, she'd needed to rest as much as he had.

 _Maybe it was just a different kind of rest._

Stirred by the uneasy feeling of a morning that started just this way—waking slowly and stirred only by the natural desire to wake—and ended as the worst morning of his life, Daryl got out of bed as quickly and quietly as he could. He was careful not to wake Carol, as she had been not to wake him that morning before she'd gone to check on Maison, but he moved quickly. He was still stepping into his shorts as he slipped out of the bedroom and made his way to the nursery.

Daryl held his breath as he stepped into the room. He had no idea what it had been like when Carol had found Maison. She wouldn't talk about it in any great detail, and he didn't ask for more than she freely gave. His discovery of the scene had been very different than hers because he'd gone in knowing, given Carol's behavior, that something wasn't right. Now, though, the nursery was just _still._ No one had come in before him. He was the first to get to the space. He'd be the first to check on the baby girl who was sleeping better and longer than she had in the few days that she'd been there.

There wasn't any sound that he could make out. Glancing at the crib, from what he could see from the threshold, there wasn't any movement. He let out the breath he'd been purposefully holding to make it easier to hear and he crossed the slightly creaking floor to the side of the crib.

On her back, eyes closed and one hand thrown back in abandon, the baby slept. She slept. That was all. Peacefully and entirely unaware of the fear that she could inspire just by sleeping, she slept.

Daryl didn't want to wake her, but he did lean over her enough to satisfy himself and check to be sure—one hundred percent sure—that she was _sleeping_. And she was. Her tiny chest rose and fell. If he leaned close enough to her, he could hear a very slight hint of a snore, possibly brought on by a coming cold or allergy. She remained unmoved by his presence and he straightened himself up and smiled at her, even if she couldn't see it.

"You usually wake my ass up at the crack of dawn," Daryl mumbled, but he wasn't really mad.

He wasn't mad at all. The emotions that were coursing through his body at the moment couldn't be any farther from anger if he'd tried to make them so.

Everybody in the whole house could sleep as long as they wanted—as long as sleeping was what they were doing.

Daryl decided, while they slept, to slip into his clothes and take a walk down to the pantry. A good breakfast, after all, was the fastest way to guarantee that a good morning turned into an even better day. And today, he thought, was an important one.

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Daryl was shifting the fried meat onto a plate and was about to flip the last of the pancakes onto another when Carol came shuffling into the kitchen. She'd slept longer than he'd thought she would. His whole household, it seemed, was overtaken by sleepy heads. He offered her a smile over his shoulder and she returned it with her lips, even if her eyes were still heavy lidded.

"Breakfast?" She asked.

"That's what people usually eat in the morning," Daryl responded.

"But I usually make it," Carol pointed out.

"Coffee—if you want it," Daryl said.

"I shouldn't have much," Carol said. "Not if I'm—not nursing."

"One cup ain't gonna kill you," Daryl said. He gestured to the table with his head and gathered up the plate of meat in one hand and the pancakes in the other. Carol steered her shuffling walk toward the table and Daryl deposited the plates of food in the center of it—the settings for them both having been put out before he'd even begun to cook. He went, then, and returned with two cups of coffee while Carol watched him with still sleepy eyes. She thanked him quietly when she took her cup from him and she tasted the dark and bitter liquid.

"It's not me I'm worried about," Carol said.

Daryl hummed and bit back a smile.

"Never is," he responded. "But—it ain't gonna hurt her neither. Dawn's done overslept. Guess she could use a little coffee in her life."

Daryl eyed Carol over his coffee cup and wondered if she was too sleepy to grasp onto his words and get anything out of them. She didn't say anything. She finished drinking a few sips of the coffee, put the cup on the table, and then she sorted some pancakes onto her plate and some onto his. He watched as she did the same with the meat and then she poured the syrup that he'd put out for her over her own food before sitting the bottle beside his plate.

She tasted one of the pancakes and Daryl cleared his throat. Carol looked at him and then she turned her attention back to the food.

"It's very good," she said, mistaking his throat clearing as a request for validation of his cooking ability. "Thank you."

"Welcome," he muttered, soaking his own plate in enough syrup that, if she'd been paying attention, Carol would have scolded him for it.

"You checked on her?" Carol asked.

"Three times," Daryl responded, trying not to sulk over the fact that Carol was practicing a very strong case of selective hearing this morning.

"And she hasn't woken at all?" Carol asked.

"No," Daryl said. "But she's fine. Just sleeping. Whatever you give her in that milk's knocked her out."

Carol laughed to herself.

"I think—maybe? She wasn't getting her stomach as full from what I pumped?" Carol offered. "Maybe she got more and just didn't feel like she needed to wake up as much to ask for more?"

Daryl hummed and shrugged at his drowning pancakes as much as he did at Carol.

"Maybe," he mumbled.

"You're sure she's sleeping?" Carol asked.

Daryl became, for just a second, overcome with an irritation that even he wasn't expecting. He smacked his hand harder than he meant to on the table. He hit the wooden table top hard enough that it stung his palm.

"Yes, I'm sure she's sleeping!" Daryl spat.

He surprised even himself. He shocked himself. His immediate instinct was to apologize, knowing that Carol didn't care at all for outbursts, but she surprised him to the point that he couldn't even manage to do that. Sleepy Carol, sitting just next to him at the table, didn't look sleepy anymore. She looked so awake that it was hard to believe that she'd even been asleep.

And she laughed at him. She laughed at him like he hadn't heard her laugh in a while. It was a good laugh. A solid laugh. The kind of laugh that made her wrap her hand around her waist because her organs protested such a laugh at breakfast. And Daryl laughed too, out of his surprise and his shock, even though he had no idea what was funny.

And when it died down, the smile remained on Carol's face where the laughter had been. The light stayed in her eyes that it had lit there.

"You don't have to get so mad about it," Carol said once her amusement was under control. "I was just making sure that— _Dawn_ —was still asleep."

Daryl was even more surprised, then, that she'd heard him. She'd heard him and she'd said nothing about his decision to try to come up with a name for the child himself. She hadn't ridiculed or scolded his decision. She hadn't pointed out—like he'd argued to himself that she might while he was testing it out on his tongue during his walk back from the pantry—that it wasn't the best name that the girl could have. Carol hadn't said anything at all about it.

And she still didn't. She simply got up from the table, tasted her coffee once more, and headed in the direction of the nursery.

"She won't be asleep for long now," Carol announced. "She probably heard us." Carol didn't stop walking, but she did slow her steps. She kept her back to Daryl. "I heard you," she said. "And I think it's a very nice name, Daryl. I hope—she wears it well for a very long time."

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Daryl knew that Dawn probably wasn't wide-eyed for any long length of time, but for the moment he was enjoying the fact that she was awake. She sat, or rather she lie, in the crook of his legs and stared at him—or just beyond him—while Carol cleaned the breakfast dishes.

She'd nursed the baby while she'd finished pancakes and she'd skillfully burped her. Daryl could never quite manage to burp her, or any baby for that matter, without costing them at least some of the milk that they'd just eaten. But at least seventy percent of the time, Carol was able to do it with the skill of an absolute professional.

When Carol had instructed him to take the baby, Daryl's stomach had turned slightly and disrupted his pancakes. He didn't want to push her, but he also didn't want to believe that she could—after showing concern and certainly showing a willingness to respond to the girl—simply turn her back to the child again. His concern must have shown on his face because Carol had offered him a simple and quick kiss on the lips and she'd pointed him in the direction of their barely used couch.

"I'm just going to wash the dishes," Carol had said. "And you're going to—be Daddy. You're going to keep her entertained for a bit."

And that was one job that Daryl could do. He could keep her entertained for a bit. He could keep her entertained for as long as she might like. And when Carol was ready, which she assured him she would be when the dishes were washed and put away and all was in order again, he could gladly pass the baby off to be cuddled and held by another willing to entertain her.

A baby found hanging in a sack from a tree branch wasn't going to fix the world. She wasn't going to bring Maison back, or even replace him. She wasn't going to take away the ache that they both felt every time that they thought of him, and it would be a long time before either of them were comfortable with the sounds of silence in the morning.

A baby, unfortunately left alone but somehow saved from the obvious and constant threats of this cruel world, wouldn't restore the order that had been disrupted. She wouldn't bring back those children who had been lost to things that she'd narrowly escaped. She couldn't return to them the ones that they felt they'd lost. Sophia would never return to them. Mikka and Lizzie were gone. Beth was still lost to poor choices and youthful compulsions in Atlanta.

A baby didn't have the power to restore their hearts or repair the broken pieces.

All that she could offer them was all that they could offer her—and all that they both sought repeatedly. A new start.

Dawn could only offer them a new day.


End file.
